[Responses of Pinus tabulaeformis forest ecosystem in North China to climate change and elevated CO2: a simulation...

Based on BIOME-BGC model and tree-ring data, a modeling study was conducted to estimate the dynamic changes of the net primary productivity (NPP) of Pinus tabulaeformis forest ecosystem in North China in 1952-2008, and explore the responses of the radial growth and NPP to regional climate warming as well as the dynamics of the NPP in the future climate change scenarios. The simulation results indicated the annual NPP of the P. tabulaeformis ecosystem in 1952-2008 fluctuated from 244.12 to 645.31 g C x m(-2) x a(-1), with a mean value of 418.6 g C x m(-2) x a(-1) The mean air temperature in May-June and the precipitation from previous August to current July were the main factors limiting the radial growth of P. tabulaeformis and the NPP of P. tabulaeformis ecosystem. In the study period, both the radial growth and the NPP presented a decreasing trend due to the regional warming and drying climate condition. In the future climate scenarios, the NPP would have positive responses to the increase of air temperature, precipitation, and their combination. The elevated CO2 would benefit the increase of the NPP, and the increment would be about 16.1% due to the CO2 fertilization. At both ecosystem and regional scales, the tree-ring data would be an ideal proxy to predict the ecosystem dynamic change, and could be used to validate and calibrate the process-based ecosystem models including BIOME-BGC.