Trees alter their use and allocation of nutrients in response to drought, and changes in soil nutrient cycling and trace gas flux (N 2 O and CH 4 ) are observed when experimental drought is imposed on forests. In extreme droughts, trees are increasingly susceptible to attack by pests and pathogens, which can lead to major changes in nutrient flux to the soil. Extreme droughts often lead to more common and more intense forest f...

Nitrogen (N) deposition is impacting the services that ecosystems provide to humanity. However, the mechanisms determining impacts on the N cycle are not fully understood. To explore the mechanistic underpinnings of N impacts on N cycle processes, we reviewed and synthesised recent progress in ecosystem N research through empirical studies, conceptual analysis and model simulations. Experimental and observational studies have...

Ecological research is increasingly concentrated at particular locations or sites. This trend reflects a variety of advantages of intensive, site‐based research, but also raises important questions about the nature of such spatially delimited research: how well does site based research represent broader areas, and does it constrain scientific discovery? We provide an overview of these issues with a particular focus on one prom...

The ongoing changes in the global climate expose the world's ecosystems not only to increasing CO 2 concentrations and temperatures but also to altered precipitation ( P ) regimes. Using four well‐established process‐based ecosystem models (LPJ, DayCent, ORCHIDEE, TECO), we explored effects of potential P changes on water limitation and net primary production (NPP) in seven terrestrial ecosystems with distinctive vegetation ty...

Interactive effects of multiple global change factors on ecosystem processes are complex. It is relatively expensive to explore those interactions in manipulative experiments. We conducted a modeling analysis to identify potentially important interactions and to stimulate hypothesis formulation for experimental research. Four models were used to quantify interactive effects of climate warming ( T ), altered precipitation amoun...

The effect of soil warming on CO 2 and CH 4 flux from a spruce–fir forest soil was evaluated at the Howland Integrated Forest Study site in Maine, USA from 1993 to 1995. Elevated soil temperatures (∼5 °C) were maintained during the snow‐free season (May – November) in replicated 15 × 15‐m plots using electric cables buried 1–2 cm below the soil surface; replicated unheated plots served as the control. CO 2 evolution from the s...