Somatic growth is an integrated, individual‐based response to environmental conditions, especially in ectotherms. Growth dynamics of large, mobile animals are particularly useful as bio‐indicators of environmental change at regional scales. We assembled growth rate data from throughout the West Atlantic for green turtles, Chelonia mydas , which are long‐lived, highly migratory, primarily herbivorous mega‐consumers that may mig...

Dam removal in the United States is increasing as a result of structural concerns, sedimentation of reservoirs, and declining riverine ecosystem conditions. The removal of the 32 m Elwha and 64 m Glines Canyon dams from the Elwha River in Washington, U.S.A., was the largest dam removal project in North American history. During the 3 yr of dam removal—from September 2011 to August 2014—more than ten million cubic meters of sedi...

Aim As the demands for food, feed and fuel increase in coming decades, society will be pressed to increase agricultural production – whether by increasing yields on already cultivated lands or by cultivating currently natural areas – or to change current crop consumption patterns. In this analysis, we consider where yields might be increased on existing croplands, and how crop yields are constrained by biophysical (e.g. climat...

Aim To assemble a data set of global crop planting and harvesting dates for 19 major crops, explore spatial relationships between planting date and climate for two of them, and compare our analysis with a review of the literature on factors that drive decisions on planting dates. Location Global. Methods We digitized and georeferenced existing data on crop planting and harvesting dates from six sources. We then examined relati...

An accurate estimate of carbon fluxes associated with tropical deforestation from the last two decades is needed to balance the global carbon budget. Several studies have already estimated carbon emissions from tropical deforestation, but the estimates vary greatly and are difficult to compare due to differences in data sources, assumptions, and methodologies. In this paper, we review the different estimates and datasets, and...

Lakes process terrigenous carbon. The carbon load processed by lakes may partially offset estimates made for terrestrial net ecosystem exchange ( NEE ). The balance within lakes between carbon burial and evasion to the atmosphere determines whether lakes are net sinks or net sources of atmospheric carbon. Here we develop a model to study processing of both autochthonous and allochthonous carbon sources in lakes. We run the mod...

We calculated carbon budgets for a chronosequence of harvested jack pine ( Pinus banksiana Lamb.) stands (0‐, 5‐, 10‐, and∼29‐year‐old) and a∼79‐year‐old stand that originated after wildfire. We measured total ecosystem C content (TEC), above‐, and belowground net primary productivity (NPP) for each stand. All values are reported in order for the 0‐, 5‐, 10‐, 29‐, and 79‐year‐old stands, respectively, for May 1999 through Apri...

Aim This study makes quantitative global estimates of land suitability for cultivation based on climate and soil constraints. It evaluates further the sensitivity of croplands to any possible changes in climate and atmospheric CO 2 concentrations. Location The location is global, geographically explicit. Methods The methods used are spatial data synthesis and analysis and numerical modelling. Results There is a cropland ‘reser...

Summary The possible responses of ecosystem processes to rising atmospheric CO 2 concentration and climate change are illustrated using six dynamic global vegetation models that explicitly represent the interactions of ecosystem carbon and water exchanges with vegetation dynamics. The models are driven by the IPCC IS92a scenario of rising CO 2 ( Wigley et al . 1991 ), and by climate changes resulting from effective CO 2 concen...

Summary In order to investigate the hypothesis that the Earth's climate and vegetation patterns may have more than one basic state, we use the fully coupled GENESIS‐IBIS model. GENESIS is an atmospheric general circulation model. IBIS is a dynamic global vegetation model that integrates biophysical, physiological, and ecological processes. GENESIS and IBIS are coupled by way of a common land surface interface to allow for the...

Summary 1. We present a simple algorithm for reconstructing spatially explicit historical changes in croplands. We initialize our simulation with a satellite‐derived characterization of present‐day croplands c. 1992. This data set of croplands is then used within a simple model, along with historical cropland inventory data at the national and subnational level, to reconstruct historical crop cover. We present an annual data s...

Numerous studies have underscored the importance of terrestrial ecosystems as an integral component of the Earth's climate system. This realization has already led to efforts to link simple equilibrium vegetation models with Atmospheric General Circulation Models through iterative coupling procedures. While these linked models have pointed to several possible climate–vegetation feedback mechanisms, they have been limited by tw...