title: [Terrestrial plant stable carbon isotope composition and global change].
abstract: Stable carbon isotope analysis is a rapid and reliable technique developed in recent years, and has been widely applied to reconstruct the sequences of atmospheric CO2 concentration changes, clarify the hysteresis effect and junior effect of temperature and precipitation on tree growth, and distinguish the distributions of plants with different photosynthetic pathways. The water use efficiency (WUE) of different plant functional groups and the variations of plant WUE with tempo-spatial and climatic changes can be also indicated by determining plant carbon isotope composition. In this paper, the effects of environmental factors, e.g., atmospheric CO2 concentration, air temperature, precipitation, and altitude on terrestrial plant carbon isotope composition were discussed, and the advances and applications of carbon isotope technique in global change research were summarized. Furthermore, the existing and disputed problems in carbon isotope analysis were discussed, and the future trends of carbon isotope technique in global change research were prospected, aimed to widen people's knowledge and promote the development of this technique.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Nothwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China. zsx@ms.iswc.ac.cn
authors.forename: Shuxi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Zhouping
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Shangguan
mesh_terms: D000388:Air / Q000032:analysis*; D002245:Carbon Dioxide / Q000032:analysis*; D002247:Carbon Isotopes / Q000032:analysis*; D012987:Soil / Q000032:analysis; D014197:Trees / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D002247:Carbon Isotopes; D012987:Soil; D002245:Carbon Dioxide