Aim To quantify the intra‐community variability of leaf‐out (ICVLo) among dominant trees in temperate deciduous forests, assess its links with specific and phylogenetic diversity, identify its environmental drivers and deduce its ecological consequences with regard to radiation received and exposure to late frost. Location Eastern North America (ENA) and Europe (EUR). Time Period 2009–2022. Major Taxa Studied Temperate deciduo...

Forest models are instrumental for understanding and projecting the impact of climate change on forests. A considerable number of forest models have been developed in the last decades. However, few systematic and comprehensive model comparisons have been performed in Europe that combine an evaluation of modelled carbon and water fluxes and forest structure. We evaluate 13 widely used, state‐of‐the‐art, stand‐scale forest model...

Understanding the critical soil moisture (SM) threshold (θ crit ) of plant water stress and land surface energy partitioning is a basis to evaluate drought impacts and improve models for predicting future ecosystem condition and climate. Quantifying the θ crit across biomes and climates is challenging because observations of surface energy fluxes and SM remain sparse. Here, we used the latest database of eddy covariance measur...

Aim The mechanisms of plant trait adaptation and acclimation are still poorly understood and, consequently, lack a consistent representation in terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs). Despite the increasing availability of geo‐referenced trait observations, current databases are still insufficient to cover all vegetation types and environmental conditions. In parallel, the growing number of continuous eddy‐covariance observations...

Extreme droughts, heat waves, frosts, precipitation, wind storms and other climate extremes may impact the structure, composition and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, and thus carbon cycling and its feedbacks to the climate system. Yet, the interconnected avenues through which climate extremes drive ecological and physiological processes and alter the carbon balance are poorly understood. Here, we review the literature o...

This study investigated the impact of predicted future climatic and atmospheric conditions on soil respiration ( R S ) in a Danish Calluna‐Deschampsia‐ heathland. A fully factorial in situ experiment with treatments of elevated atmospheric CO 2 (+130 ppm), raised soil temperature (+0.4 °C) and extended summer drought (5–8% precipitation exclusion) was established in 2005. The average R S , observed in the control over 3 years...

Estimates of carbon leaching losses from different land use systems are few and their contribution to the net ecosystem carbon balance is uncertain. We investigated leaching of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), and dissolved methane (CH 4 ), at forests, grasslands, and croplands across Europe. Biogenic contributions to DIC were estimated by means of its δ 13 C signature. Leaching of biogenic DIC...

While substantial cold‐season respiration has been documented in most arctic and alpine ecosystems in recent years, the significance of cold‐season photosynthesis in these biomes is still believed to be small. In a mesic, subartic heath during both the cold and warm season, we measured in situ ecosystem respiration and photosynthesis with a chamber technique at ambient conditions and at artificially increased frequency of free...