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Climate warming and increasing atmospheric CO2 have contributed to increased intrinsic water-use efficiency on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau since 1850

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Abstract

We investigated the physiological responses of Tibetan juniper (Sabina tibetica) to changes in the atmospheric CO2 concentration (C a) and climate on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau based on annual tree-ring δ13C values since 1850. Intrinsic water-use efficiency (iWUE) increased, and the internal to ambient CO2 ratio (C i /C a) showed no significant trend from 1895 to 1974 in the study region, indicating an active response to changing C a. The long-term trends in iWUE in the naturally occurring trees were mainly caused by the anthropogenic increase in C a. However, from 1975 to 2002, iWUE increased rapidly at the study site (by 12.4 % compared with the overall mean from 1850 to 2002), which is greater than the expected increase due only to an active response to C a. Our analysis showed that decreased water availability caused by greater evaporation due to decreased precipitation and a warming growth environment from 1975 to 2002 may have reduced stomatal conductance, leading to a higher iWUE. The warming climate and increased C a accounted for 83.6 % of the variance in iWUE of Tibetan juniper on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau from 1975 to 2002.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Global Change Research Program of China (2010CB951401), by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41171167, 41121001, 40871002 and 31200299), and by the Knowledge Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-YW-QN308). We thank the journal’s anonymous reviewers and the journal’s editor, whose comments and suggestions helped us to improve the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Donggang West Road No. 320, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Guobao Xu, Xiaohong Liu, Dahe Qin, Tuo Chen, Wenling An, Wenzhi Wang, Guoju Wu, Xiaomin Zeng & Jiawen Ren

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Guobao Xu, Wenling An, Wenzhi Wang, Guoju Wu & Xiaomin Zeng

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  1. Guobao Xu
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  2. Xiaohong Liu
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  3. Dahe Qin
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  4. Tuo Chen
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  5. Wenling An
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  6. Wenzhi Wang
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  8. Xiaomin Zeng
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  9. Jiawen Ren
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Correspondence to Xiaohong Liu.

Additional information

Communicated by A. Braeuning.

Special topic: Dendroecology in Asia.

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468_2013_855_MOESM1_ESM.tif

Fig. S1 Trends in (a) the δ13Craw chronology, (b) the δ13Cc chronology, and (c) δ13Cpin chronology over time. Linear and nonlinear regression plotted from 1850 to 2002, from 1895 to 2002, from 1950 to 2002, and from 1975 to 2002. Only statistically significant (p < 0.05) trends are presented (TIFF 767 kb)

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Xu, G., Liu, X., Qin, D. et al. Climate warming and increasing atmospheric CO2 have contributed to increased intrinsic water-use efficiency on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau since 1850. Trees 27, 465–475 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-013-0855-3

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