The DOI matches its Crossref record; 90 of the 90 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Carbon dioxide and the uneasy interactions of trees and savannah grasses
Open accessAbstract
Savannahs are a mixture of trees and grasses often occurring as alternate states to closed forests. Savannah fires are frequent where grass productivity is high in the wet season. Fires help maintain grassy vegetation where the climate is suitable for woodlands or forests. Saplings in savannahs are particularly vulnerable to topkill of above-ground biomass. Larger trees are more fire-resistant and suffer little damage when burnt. Recruitment to large mature tree size classes depends on sapling growth rates to fire-resistant sizes and the time between fires. Carbon dioxide (CO 2) can influence the growth rate of juvenile plants, thereby affecting tree recruitment and the conversion of open savannahs to woodlands. Trees have increased in many savannahs throughout the world, whereas some humid savannahs are being invaded by forests. CO 2 has been implicated in this woody increase but attribution to global drivers has been controversial where changes in grazing and fire have also occurred. We report on diverse tests of the magnitude of CO 2 effects on both ancient and modern ecosystems with a particular focus on African savannahs. Large increases in trees of mesic savannahs in the region cannot easily be explained by land use change but are consistent with experimental and simulation studies of CO 2 effects. Changes in arid savannahs seem less obviously linked to CO 2 effects and may be driven more by overgrazing. Large-scale shifts in the tree–grass balance in the past and the future need to be better understood. They not only have major impacts on the ecology of grassy ecosystems but also on Earth–atmosphere linkages and the global carbon cycle in ways that are still being discovered.
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Bowman, D. M. J. S., Balch, J. K., Artaxo, P., Bond, W. J., Carlson, J. M., Cochrane, M. A., D’Antonio, C. M., DeFries, R. S., Doyle, J. C., Harrison, S. P., et al. (2009) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1163886 · Cited by 3,351
Self-citation(2010) · doi:10.5194/acp-10-11707-2010 · Cited by 2,859
Global vegetation change through the Miocene/Pliocene boundary
Cerling, T. E., Harris, J. M., MacFadden, B. J., Leakey, M. G., Quade, J., Eisenmann, V., & Ehleringer, J. R. (1997) · Nature · doi:10.1038/38229 · Cited by 2,159
Determinants of woody cover in African savannas.
Sankaran, M., Hanan, N. P., Scholes, R. J., Ratnam, J., Augustine, D. J., Cade, B. S., Gignoux, J., Higgins, S. I., Le Roux, X., Ludwig, F., et al. (2005) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature04070 · Cited by 1,963
The global distribution of ecosystems in a world without fire
Bond, W. J., Woodward, F. I., & Midgley, G. F. (2005) · New Phytologist · doi:10.1111/j.1469-8137.2004.01252.x · Cited by 1,942
Self-citationMORE EFFICIENT PLANTS: A Consequence of Rising Atmospheric CO2?
Drake, B. G., Gonzàlez-Meler, M. A., & Long, S. P. (1997) · Annual Review of Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular Biology · doi:10.1146/annurev.arplant.48.1.609 · Cited by 1,925
Ecology of sprouting in woody plants: the persistence niche
Bond, W. J., & Midgley, J. J. (2001) · Trends in Ecology & Evolution · doi:10.1016/s0169-5347(00)02033-4 · Cited by 1,500
Self-citationSmoking Rain Clouds over the Amazon
Andreae, M. O., Rosenfeld, D., Artaxo, P., Costa, A. A., Frank, G. P., Longo, K. M., & Silva-Dias, M. A. F. (2004) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1092779 · Cited by 1,489
C 4 photosynthesis, atmospheric CO 2 , and climate
Ehleringer, J. R., Cerling, T. E., & Helliker, B. R. (1997) · Oecologia · doi:10.1007/s004420050311 · Cited by 1,390
Progressive Nitrogen Limitation of Ecosystem Responses to Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
LUO, Y., SU, B., CURRIE, W. S., DUKES, J. S., FINZI, A., HARTWIG, U., HUNGATE, B., Mc MURTRIE, R. E., OREN, R., PARTON, W. J., et al. (2004) · BioScience · doi:10.1641/0006-3568(2004)054[0731:pnloer]2.0.co;2 · Cited by 1,350
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Blois, J. L., Williams, J. W., Fitzpatrick, M. C., Jackson, S. T., & Ferrier, S. (2013) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1220228110 · Cited by 786
Tropical grassy biomes: misunderstood, neglected, and under threat
Parr, C. L., Lehmann, C. E. R., Bond, W. J., Hoffmann, W. A., & Andersen, A. N. (2014) · Trends in Ecology & Evolution · doi:10.1016/j.tree.2014.02.004 · Cited by 603
Self-citationClimate change vulnerability assessment of species
Foden, W. B., Young, B. E., Akçakaya, H. R., Garcia, R. A., Hoffmann, A. A., Stein, B. A., Thomas, C. D., Wheatley, C. J., Bickford, D., Carr, J. A., et al. (2019) · WIREs Climate Change · doi:10.1002/wcc.551 · Cited by 527
Next‐generation dynamic global vegetation models: learning from community ecology
Scheiter, S., Langan, L., & Higgins, S. I. (2013) · New Phytologist · doi:10.1111/nph.12210 · Cited by 498
What controls the distribution of tropical forest and savanna?
Murphy, B. P., & Bowman, D. M. J. S. (2012) · Ecology Letters · doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01771.x · Cited by 437
Metadata
- Authors
- Bond, W. J., & Midgley, G. F.
- Venue
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2012-02-19
- Volume
- 367
- Issue
- 1588
- Pages
- 601-612
- ISSN
- 0962-8436 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-2970
- OpenAlex
- W2138324625
- Cited by
- 437
- References
- 90
- FWCI
- 38.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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