Peatland rewetting has been proposed as a vital climate change mitigation tool to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to generate suitable conditions for the return of carbon (C) sequestration. In this study, we present annual C balances for a 5‐year period at a rewetted peatland in Ireland (rewetted at the start of the study) and compare the results with an adjacent drained area (represents business‐as‐usual). Hydrological mo...

The degree to which elevated CO 2 concentrations (e[CO 2 ]) increase the amount of carbon (C) assimilated by vegetation plays a key role in climate change. However, due to the short‐term nature of CO 2 enrichment experiments and the lack of reconciliation between different ecological scales, the effect of e[CO 2 ] on plant biomass stocks remains a major uncertainty in future climate projections. Here, we review the effect of e...

Increasing atmospheric CO 2 enhances plant biomass production and may thereby change nutrient concentrations in plant tissues. The objective of this study was to identify the effect of elevated atmospheric CO 2 concentrations on nutrient concentrations of grassland biomass that have been grown for 16 years (1998–2013). The grassland biomass grown at the extensively managed Giessen FACE experiment, fumigated with ambient and el...

The ecological impacts of long‐term elevated atmospheric CO 2 (eCO 2 ) levels on soil microbiota remain largely unknown. This is particularly true for the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, which form mutualistic associations with over two‐thirds of terrestrial plant species and are entirely dependent on their plant hosts for carbon. Here, we use high‐resolution amplicon sequencing (Illumina, HiSeq) to quantify the response of...

Rising atmospheric CO 2 concentrations are expected to increase nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions from soils via changes in microbial nitrogen (N) transformations. Several studies have shown that N 2 O emission increases under elevated atmospheric CO 2 ( eCO 2 ), but the underlying processes are not yet fully understood. Here, we present results showing changes in soil N transformation dynamics from the Giessen Free Air CO 2 Enr...

Future increase in atmospheric CO 2 concentrations will potentially enhance grassland biomass production and shift the functional group composition with consequences for ecosystem functioning. In the “Gi FACE ” experiment (Giessen Free Air Carbon dioxide Enrichment), fertilized grassland plots were fumigated with elevated CO 2 ( eCO 2 ) year‐round during daylight hours since 1998, at a level of +20% relative to ambient concent...

Drained peat soils are a significant source of greenhouse gas ( GHG ) emissions to the atmosphere. Rewetting these soils is considered an important climate change mitigation tool to reduce emissions and create suitable conditions for carbon sequestration. Long‐term monitoring is essential to capture interannual variations in GHG emissions and associated environmental variables and to reduce the uncertainty linked with GHG emis...

Climate change scenarios predict increases in the frequency and duration of ENSO ‐related droughts for parts of South‐East Asia until the end of this century exposing the remaining rainforests to increasing drought risk. A pan‐tropical review of recorded drought‐related tree mortalities in more than 100 monitoring plots before, during and after drought events suggested a higher drought‐vulnerability of trees in South‐East Asia...

Aim This study investigates how estimated tree aboveground biomass (AGB) of tropical montane rain forests varies with elevation, and how this variation is related to elevational change in floristic composition, phylogenetic community structure and the biogeography of the dominant tree taxa. Location Lore Lindu National Park, Sulawesi, Indonesia. Methods Floristic inventories and stand structural analyses were conducted on 13 p...

Agroforestry systems may play a critical role in reducing the vulnerability of farmers' livelihood to droughts as tree‐based systems provide several mechanisms that can mitigate the impacts from extreme weather events. Here, we use a replicated throughfall reduction experiment to study the drought response of a cacao/ Gliricidia stand over a 13‐month period. Soil water content was successfully reduced down to a soil depth of a...