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Ecosystem photosynthesis in land-surface models: a first-principles approach

View ORCID ProfileGiulia Mengoli, View ORCID ProfileAnna Agustí-Panareda, View ORCID ProfileSouhail Boussetta, View ORCID ProfileSandy P. Harrison, View ORCID ProfileCarlo Trotta, View ORCID ProfileI. Colin Prentice
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.07.442894
Giulia Mengoli
1Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Buckhurst Road, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK
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  • ORCID record for Giulia Mengoli
  • For correspondence: gmengoli@ic.ac.uk
Anna Agustí-Panareda
2European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, Shinfield Road, Reading, RG2 9AX, UK
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Souhail Boussetta
2European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, Shinfield Road, Reading, RG2 9AX, UK
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Sandy P. Harrison
3Geography & Environmental Sciences, Reading University, Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 6AH, UK
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Carlo Trotta
4Division on Impacts on Agriculture, Forests and Ecosystem Services (IAFES), Fondazione Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC), Viale Trieste 127, Viterbo, 01100, Italy
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I. Colin Prentice
1Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Buckhurst Road, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK
5Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW 2109, Australia
6Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
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Abstract

Vegetation regulates land-atmosphere water and energy exchanges and is an essential component of land-surface models (LSMs). However, LSMs have been handicapped by assumptions that equate acclimated photosynthetic responses to environment with fast responses observable in the laboratory. These time scales can be distinguished by including specific representations of acclimation, but at the cost of further increasing parameter requirements. Here we develop an alternative approach based on optimality principles that predict the acclimation of carboxylation and electron-transport capacities, and a variable controlling the response of leaf-level carbon dioxide drawdown to vapour pressure deficit (VPD), to variations in growth conditions on a weekly to monthly time scale. In the “P model”, an optimality-based light-use efficiency model for gross primary production (GPP) on this time scale, these acclimated responses are implicit. Here they are made explicit, allowing fast and slow response time-scales to be separated and GPP to be simulated at sub-daily timesteps. The resulting model mimics diurnal cycles of GPP recorded by eddy-covariance flux towers in a temperate grassland and boreal, temperate and tropical forests, with no parameter changes between biomes. Best performance is achieved when biochemical capacities are adjusted to match recent midday conditions. This model suggests a simple and parameter-sparse method to include both instantaneous and acclimated responses within an LSM framework, with many potential applications in weather, climate and carbon - cycle modelling.

Plain Language Summary Vegetation regulates the exchanges of energy, water and carbon dioxide between the land and the atmosphere. Numerical climate models represent these processes, focusing mainly on their rapid variations in response to changes in the environment (including temperature and light) on timescales of seconds to hours. However, plants also adjust their physiology to environmental changes over longer periods within the season. Here we have adapted a simple model that formulates plant behaviour in terms of optimal trade-offs between different processes, so it simulates processes on both time scales. This model correctly reproduces the daily cycle of carbon dioxide uptake by plants, as recorded in different kinds of vegetation. We show that plants optimize their behaviour for midday conditions, when the light is greatest, and adjust to longer-term environmental variations on a timescale of about a week to a month. The model conveniently avoids the need to give specific, fixed values to physiological variables (such as photosynthetic capacity) for different types of plants. The optimality assumptions mean that the model gives equally good results in tropical, temperate and boreal forests, and in grasslands, using the same equations, and a very small number of input variables that are constant across the world.

Key Points

  • Optimality theory is used to develop a simple model incorporating fast and acclimated responses of photosynthesis and stomatal conductance

  • Biogeochemical photosynthetic capacities adjust to midday light conditions

  • The new model simulates gross primary production on sub-daily timesteps across a range of different vegetation types and climate

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4392703

  • https://github.com/GiuliaMengoli/P-model_subDaily

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted May 09, 2021.
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Ecosystem photosynthesis in land-surface models: a first-principles approach
Giulia Mengoli, Anna Agustí-Panareda, Souhail Boussetta, Sandy P. Harrison, Carlo Trotta, I. Colin Prentice
bioRxiv 2021.05.07.442894; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.07.442894
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Ecosystem photosynthesis in land-surface models: a first-principles approach
Giulia Mengoli, Anna Agustí-Panareda, Souhail Boussetta, Sandy P. Harrison, Carlo Trotta, I. Colin Prentice
bioRxiv 2021.05.07.442894; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.07.442894

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