title: Terrestrial carbon balance in a drier world: the effects of water availability in southwestern North America.
abstract: Global modeling efforts indicate semiarid regions dominate the increasing trend and interannual variation of net CO2 exchange with the atmosphere, mainly driven by water availability. Many semiarid regions are expected to undergo climatic drying, but the impacts on net CO2 exchange are poorly understood due to limited semiarid flux observations. Here we evaluated 121 site-years of annual eddy covariance measurements of net and gross CO2 exchange (photosynthesis and respiration), precipitation, and evapotranspiration (ET) in 21 semiarid North American ecosystems with an observed range of 100 - 1000 mm in annual precipitation and records of 4-9 years each. In addition to evaluating spatial relationships among CO2 and water fluxes across sites, we separately quantified site-level temporal relationships, representing sensitivity to interannual variation. Across the climatic and ecological gradient, photosynthesis showed a saturating spatial relationship to precipitation, whereas the photosynthesis-ET relationship was linear, suggesting ET was a better proxy for water available to drive CO2 exchanges after hydrologic losses. Both photosynthesis and respiration showed similar site-level sensitivity to interannual changes in ET among the 21 ecosystems. Furthermore, these temporal relationships were not different from the spatial relationships of long-term mean CO2 exchanges with climatic ET. Consequently, a hypothetical 100-mm change in ET, whether short term or long term, was predicted to alter net ecosystem production (NEP) by 64 gCm(-2) yr(-1). Most of the unexplained NEP variability was related to persistent, site-specific function, suggesting prioritization of research on slow-changing controls. Common temporal and spatial sensitivity to water availability increases our confidence that site-level responses to interannual weather can be extrapolated for prediction of CO2 exchanges over decadal and longer timescales relevant to societal response to climate change.
authors.affiliation: Southwest Watershed Research Center, Agricultural Research Service, Tucson, AZ, 85719, USA.
authors.forename: Joel A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Biederman
authors.affiliation: Southwest Watershed Research Center, Agricultural Research Service, Tucson, AZ, 85719, USA.
authors.forename: Russell L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Scott
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth System Science, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA.
authors.forename: Michael L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Goulden
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 19716, USA.
authors.forename: Rodrigo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Vargas
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA.
authors.forename: Marcy E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Litvak
authors.affiliation: School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, 86011, USA.
authors.forename: Thomas E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Kolb
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Ciencias del Agua y Medio Ambiente, Instituto Tecnológico de Sonora, Cd. Obregón, Sonora, 85000, México.
authors.forename: Enrico A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Yepez
authors.affiliation: Global Change Research Group and Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, 92182, USA.|Department of Environment, Earth and Ecosystems, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK.
authors.forename: Walter C
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Oechel
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA.
authors.forename: Peter D
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Blanken
authors.affiliation: Earth Research Institute, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA.
authors.forename: Tom W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Bell
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Ciencias del Agua y Medio Ambiente, Instituto Tecnológico de Sonora, Cd. Obregón, Sonora, 85000, México.
authors.forename: Jaime
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Garatuza-Payan
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA.
authors.forename: Gregory E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Maurer
authors.affiliation: School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, 86011, USA.
authors.forename: Sabina
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2956-5251
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dore
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA.|National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, 80301, USA.
authors.forename: Sean P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Burns
mesh_terms: D057486:Carbon Cycle; D002245:Carbon Dioxide / Q000032:analysis; D057231:Climate Change; D003889:Desert Climate; D055864:Droughts; D008800:Mexico; D010788:Photosynthesis; D012621:Seasons; D015206:Southwestern United States
chemical_list: D002245:Carbon Dioxide
keywords: carbon dioxide; climate; ecosystem; evapotranspiration; net ecosystem exchange; net ecosystem production; photosynthesis; productivity; respiration; semiarid; water