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Interactions of Water and Nitrogen on Primary Productivity Across Spatial and Temporal Scales in Grassland and Shrubland Ecosystems

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Dryland Ecohydrology

Abstract

Soil moisture, and hence precipitation, exerts a dominant control on net primary productivity (NPP; the rate of carbon accumulation by autotrophs) in semiarid to subhumid ecosystems, such as grasslands and shrublands. At the global scale, mean annual precipitation has been shown to account for >50% of the variance in aboveground net primary production (ANPP) in grassland ecosystems (Lauenroth 1979; Le Houérou et al. 1988). Within specific regions, numerous investigators have demonstrated strong positive relationships between mean annual precipitation (MAP) and primary productivity (or some surrogate variable) for various ecosystems globally, including the Great Plains grasslands (Sala et al. 1988; Knapp et al. 2001; Epstein et al. 2002), the Patagonian steppe (Austin and Sala 2002; Jobbágy et al. 2002), African grasslands and savannas (Breman and de Wit 1983; McNaughton et al. 1993; Scanlon et al. 2002), and grasslands and shrublands of Inner Mongolia and northeastern China (Gao and Yu 1998; Yu et al. 2004).

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Acknowledgments

H.E. Epstein’s contribution was funded in part by the NSF award EAR-0236621. C. Dickerson assisted with the literature review.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    H. E. Epstein

  2. School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    W. K. Lauenroth & I. C. Burke

  3. Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

    J. M. Paruelo & G. Piñeiro

  4. Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic University, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    J. E. Barrett

Authors
  1. H. E. Epstein
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  2. W. K. Lauenroth
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  3. J. M. Paruelo
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  4. G. Piñeiro
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  5. I. C. Burke
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  6. J. E. Barrett
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to H. E. Epstein .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Paolo D'Odorico

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Amilcare Porporato

  3. Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, USA

    Christiane Wilkinson Runyan

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Epstein, H.E., Lauenroth, W.K., Paruelo, J.M., Piñeiro, G., Burke, I.C., Barrett, J.E. (2019). Interactions of Water and Nitrogen on Primary Productivity Across Spatial and Temporal Scales in Grassland and Shrubland Ecosystems. In: D'Odorico, P., Porporato, A., Wilkinson Runyan, C. (eds) Dryland Ecohydrology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23269-6_16

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