The DOI matches its Crossref record; 8 of the 8 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The origin of the savanna biome
Abstract
Savannas are a major terrestrial biome, comprising of grasses with the C 4 photosynthetic pathway and trees with the C 3 type. This mixed grass–tree biome rapidly appeared on the ecological stage 8 million years ago with the near‐synchronous expansion of C 4 grasses around the world. We propose a new hypothesis for this global event based on a systems analysis that integrates recent advances in how fire influences cloud microphysics, climate and savanna ecology in a low carbon dioxide (CO 2) world. We show that fire accelerates forest loss and C 4 grassland expansion through multiple positive feedback loops that each promote drought and more fire. A low CO 2 atmosphere amplifies this cycle by limiting tree recruitment, allowing the ingress of C 4 grasses to greatly increase ecosystem flammability. Continued intensification of land use could enhance or moderate the network of feedbacks that have initiated, promoted and sustained savannas for millions of years. We suggest these alterations will overprint the effects of anthropogenic atmospheric change in coming decades.
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Cites
Fire as a global ‘herbivore’: the ecology and evolution of flammable ecosystems
BOND, W., & KEELEY, J. (2005) · Trends in Ecology & Evolution · doi:10.1016/j.tree.2005.04.025 · Cited by 2,484
Estimating historical changes in global land cover: Croplands from 1700 to 1992
Ramankutty, N., & Foley, J. A. (1999) · Global Biogeochemical Cycles · doi:10.1029/1999gb900046 · Cited by 2,074
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
Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over the past 60 million years
Pearson, P. N., & Palmer, M. R. (2000) · Nature · doi:10.1038/35021000 · Cited by 1,771
Cochrane, M. A. (2003) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature01437 · Cited by 1,218
The Phanerozoic Carbon Cycle: CO2 and O2
Berner, R. A. (2004) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780195173338.001.0001 · Cited by 679 · cited 4×
“…powerful approach for analysing complex networks that has proved of great utility for discovering the existence and sign of potential feedback loops between and within biological and physical systems (Kump, 1988; Berner, 1999, 2004; Cochrane, 2003; Somerville et al., 2004; Beerling & Berner, 2005).”
BackgroundInfluentialTerrestrial feedback in atmospheric oxygen regulation by fire and phosphorus
Kump, L. R. (1988) · Nature · doi:10.1038/335152a0 · Cited by 115
Cited by
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
Simon, M. F., Grether, R., de Queiroz, L. P., Skema, C., Pennington, R. T., & Hughes, C. E. (2009) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0903410106 · Cited by 1,056
What Limits Trees in C4 Grasslands and Savannas?
Bond, W. J. (2008) · Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics · doi:10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.39.110707.173411 · Cited by 909
Oligocene CO2 Decline Promoted C4 Photosynthesis in Grasses
Christin, P.-A., Besnard, G., Samaritani, E., Duvall, M. R., Hodkinson, T. R., Savolainen, V., & Salamin, N. (2008) · Current Biology · doi:10.1016/j.cub.2007.11.058 · Cited by 373
The partitioning of Africa: statistically defined biogeographical regions in sub‐Saharan Africa
Linder, H. P., de Klerk, H. M., Born, J., Burgess, N. D., Fjeldså, J., & Rahbek, C. (2012) · Journal of Biogeography · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2699.2012.02728.x · Cited by 371
Metadata
- Authors
- BEERLING, D. J., & OSBORNE, C. P.
- Venue
- Global Change Biology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2006-09-08
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 2023-2031
- ISSN
- 1354-1013 (ISSN-L)
- 1365-2486
- OpenAlex
- W2083265151
- Cited by
- 407
- References
- 8
- FWCI
- 10.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
