@article{22462,
  abstract     = {Enhanced rock weathering (ERW) is an emerging carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategy that can support net-zero emission targets. However, current ERW modelling efforts rely on assumptions that introduce substantial variation in CDR estimates across varying ecosystems and hydroclimatic conditions. They typically ignore or oversimplify plant–soil interactions and high-frequency hydrological dynamics, obscuring short-term weathering responses and biotic feedbacks to soil moisture dynamics. Here, we introduce an integrated, process-based modelling framework, T&C-SMEW, which represents ecohydrological and ERW dynamics, along with microbially explicit biogeochemical processes. We compared framework simulations against a controlled mesocosm experiment and long-term field observations, demonstrating its ability to reproduce feedstock cation release, soil pH dynamics, gross primary production, and CO2 fluxes. T&C-SMEW reveals hydrological constraints and vegetation effects on ERW-mediated CDR by quantifying impacts on ecosystem respiration, net ecosystem exchange, and alkalinity export, emphasising the importance of ecohydrological modelling for ecosystem-level CDR estimation. These advances provide a modelling framework for identifying optimal deployment scenarios to establish ERW as a viable and operationally feasible CDR approach.},
  author       = {Zhang, Ziyan and Jones, Gregory and Calabrese, Salvatore and Bertagni, Matteo and Fatichi, Simone and Waring, Bonnie and Paschalis, Athanasios},
  issn         = {1365-2486},
  journal      = {Global Change Biology},
  number       = {12},
  publisher    = {Wiley},
  title        = {{An integrated modelling framework to determine terrestrial carbon dioxide removal via enhanced rock weathering}},
  doi          = {10.1111/gcb.70650},
  volume       = {31},
  year         = {2025},
}

@article{22491,
  abstract     = {<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) is an important variable mediating microbial effects on soil organic carbon (SOC) since it summarizes how much carbon is used for microbial growth or is respired. Yet, the role of CUE in regulating SOC storage remains debated, with evidence for both positive and negative SOC‐CUE relations. Here, we use a combination of measured data around the world and numerical simulations to explore SOC‐CUE relations accounting for temperature (T) effects on CUE. Results reveal that the sign of the CUE‐T relation controls the direction of the SOC‐CUE relations. A negative CUE‐T relation leads to a positive SOC‐CUE relation and vice versa, highlighting that CUE‐T patterns significantly affect how organic carbon is used by microbes and hence SOC‐CUE relations. Numerical results also confirm the observed negative SOC‐T relation, regardless of the CUE‐T patterns, implying that temperature plays a more dominant role than CUE in controlling SOC storage. The SOC‐CUE relation is usually negative when temperature effects are isolated, even though it can become positive when nonlinear microbial turnover is considered. These results indicate a dominant role of CUE‐T patterns in controlling the SOC‐CUE relation. Our findings help to better understand SOC and microbial responses to a warming climate.</jats:p>},
  author       = {Luo, Zhaoyang and Ren, Jianning and Manzoni, Stefano and Fatichi, Simone},
  issn         = {1365-2486},
  journal      = {Global Change Biology},
  number       = {9},
  publisher    = {Wiley},
  title        = {{Temperature controls the relation between soil organic carbon and microbial carbon use efficiency}},
  doi          = {10.1111/gcb.17492},
  volume       = {30},
  year         = {2024},
}

@article{22511,
  abstract     = {Wildfires are increasing in frequency, intensity, and extent globally due to climate change and they can alter forest composition, structure, and function. The destruction and subsequent regrowth of young vegetation can modify the ecosystem evapotranspiration and downstream water availability. However, the response of forest recovery on hydrology is not well known with even the sign of evapotranspiration and water yield changes following forest fires being uncertain across the globe. Here, we quantify the effects of forest regrowth after catastrophic wildfires on evapotranspiration and runoff in the world's tallest angiosperm forest (Eucalyptus regnans) in Australia. We combine eddy covariance measurements including pre- and post-fire periods, mechanistic ecohydrological modeling and then extend the analysis spatially to multiple fires in eucalypt-dominated forests in south-eastern Australia by utilizing remote sensing. We find a fast recovery of evapotranspiration which reaches and exceeds pre-fire values within 2 years after the bushfire, a result confirmed by eddy covariance data, remote sensing, and modeling. Such a fast evapotranspiration recovery is likely generalizable to tall eucalypt forests in south-eastern Australia as shown by remote sensing. Once climate variability is discounted, ecohydrological modeling shows evapotranspiration rates from the recovering forest which reach peak values of +20% evapotranspiration 3 years post-fire. As a result, modeled runoff decreases substantially. Contrary to previous research, we find that the increase in modeled evapotranspiration is largely caused by the aerodynamic effects of a much shorter forest height leading to higher surface temperature, higher humidity gradients and therefore increased transpiration. However, increases in evapotranspiration as well as decreases in runoff caused by the young forest are constrained by energy and water limitations. Our result of an increase in evapotranspiration due to aerodynamic warming in a shorter forest after wildfires could occur in many parts of the world experiencing forest disturbances.},
  author       = {Meili, Naika and Beringer, Jason and Zhao, Jiacheng and Fatichi, Simone},
  issn         = {1365-2486},
  journal      = {Global Change Biology},
  keywords     = {Aerodynamic effects, Bushfires Australia, Ecohydrological modeling, Eddy covariancemeasurements, Eucalyptus regnans, Forest evapotranspiration, Forest recovery, Mountain Ash, TERN OzFlux, Wildfires},
  number       = {1},
  publisher    = {Wiley},
  title        = {{Aerodynamic effects cause higher forest evapotranspiration and water yield reductions after wildfires in tall forests}},
  doi          = {10.1111/gcb.16995},
  volume       = {30},
  year         = {2024},
}

@article{22563,
  abstract     = {The ascent of water from the soil to the leaves of vascular plants, described by the study of plant hydraulics, regulates ecosystem responses to environmental forcing and recovery from stress periods. Several approaches to model plant hydraulics have been proposed. In this study, we introduce four different versions of plant hydraulics representations in the terrestrial biosphere model T&C to understand the significance of plant hydraulics to ecosystem functioning. We tested representations of plant hydraulics, investigating plant water capacitance, and long-term xylem damages following drought. The four models we tested were a combination of representations including or neglecting capacitance and including or neglecting xylem damage legacies. Using the models at six case studies spanning semiarid to tropical ecosystems, we quantify how plant xylem flow, plant water storage and long-term xylem damage can modulate overall water and carbon dynamics across multiple time scales. We show that as drought develops, models with plant hydraulics predict a slower onset of plant water stress, and a diurnal variability of water and carbon fluxes closer to observations. Plant water storage was found to be particularly important for the diurnal dynamics of water and carbon fluxes, with models that include plant water capacitance yielding better results. Models including permanent damage to conducting plant tissues show an additional significant drought legacy effect, limiting plant productivity during the recovery phase following major droughts. However, when considering ecosystem responses to the observed climate variability, plant hydraulic modules alone cannot significantly improve the overall model performance, even though they reproduce more realistic water and carbon dynamics. This opens new avenues for model development, explicitly linking plant hydraulics with additional ecosystem processes, such as plant phenology and improved carbon allocation algorithms.},
  author       = {Paschalis, Athanasios and De Kauwe, Martin G. and Sabot, Manon and Fatichi, Simone},
  issn         = {1365-2486},
  journal      = {Global Change Biology},
  keywords     = {Ecosystem recovery, Ecosystem responses, Plant hydraulics, Terrestrial biosphere model, Water stress},
  number       = {1},
  publisher    = {Wiley},
  title        = {{When do plant hydraulics matter in terrestrial biosphere modelling?}},
  doi          = {10.1111/gcb.17022},
  volume       = {30},
  year         = {2024},
}

@article{22534,
  abstract     = {Tree planting is a prevalent strategy to mitigate urban heat. Tree cooling efficiency(TCE), defined as the temperature reduction for a 1% tree cover increase, plays animportant role in urban climate as it regulates the capacity of trees to alter the sur-face energy and water budget. However, the spatial variation and more importantly,temporal heterogeneity of TCE in global cities are not fully explored. Here, we usedLandsat-based tree cover and land surface temperature (LST) to compare TCEs at areference air temperature and tree cover level across 806 global cities and to exploretheir potential drivers with a boosted regression tree (BRT) machine learning model.From the results, we found that TCE is spatially regulated by not only leaf area index(LAI) but climate variables and anthropogenic factors especially city albedo, withouta specific variable dominating the others. However, such spatial difference is attenu-ated by the decrease of TCE with tree cover, most pronounced in midlatitude cities.During the period 2000–2015, more than 90% of analyzed cities showed an increas-ing trend in TCE, which is likely explained by a combined result of the increase in LAI,intensified solar radiation due to decreased aerosol content, increase in urban vaporpressure deficit (VPD) and decrease of city albedo. Concurrently, significant urbanafforestation occurred across many cities showing a global city-scale mean tree coverincrease of 5.3 ± 3.8% from 2000 to 2015. Over the growing season, such increasescombined with an increasing TCE were estimated to on average yield a midday sur-face cooling of 1.5 ± 1.3°C in tree-covered urban areas. These results are offeringnew insights into the use of urban afforestation as an adaptation to global warmingand urban planners may leverage them to provide more cooling benefits if trees areprimarily planted for this purpose.},
  author       = {Zhao, Jiacheng and Zhao, Xiang and Wu, Donghai and Meili, Naika and Fatichi, Simone},
  issn         = {1365-2486},
  journal      = {Global Change Biology},
  keywords     = {Climate change, Remote sensing, Tree cooling efficiency, Tree cover, Urban afforestation},
  number       = {11},
  pages        = {3085--3097},
  publisher    = {Wiley},
  title        = {{Satellite‐based evidence highlights a considerable increase of urban tree cooling benefits from 2000 to 2015}},
  doi          = {10.1111/gcb.16667},
  volume       = {29},
  year         = {2023},
}

@article{22569,
  abstract     = {Despite their size and contribution to the global carbon cycle, we have limited understanding of tropical savannas and their current trajectory with climate change and anthropogenic pressures. Here we examined interannual variability and externally forced long-term changes in carbon and water exchange from a high rainfall savanna site in the seasonal tropics of north Australia. We used an 18-year flux data time series (2001–2019) to detect trends and drivers of fluxes of carbon and water. Significant positive trends in gross primary productivity (GPP, 15.4 g C m2 year−2), ecosystem respiration (Reco, 8.0 g C m2 year−2), net ecosystem productivity (NEE, 7.4 g C m2 year−2) and ecosystem water use efficiency (WUE, 0.0077 g C kg H2O−1 year−1) were computed. There was a weaker, non-significant trend in latent energy exchange (LE, 0.34 W m−2 year−1). Rainfall from a nearby site increased statistically over a 45-year period during the observation period. To examine the dominant drivers of changes in GPP and WUE, we used a random forest approach and a terrestrial biosphere model to conduct an attribution experiment. Radiant energy was the dominant driver of wet season fluxes, whereas soil water content dominated dry season fluxes. The model attribution suggested that [CO2], precipitation and Tair accounting for 90% of the modelled trend in GPP and WUE. Positive trends in fluxes were largest in the dry season implying tree components were a larger contributor than the grassy understorey. Fluxes and environmental drivers were not significant during the wet season, the period when grasses are active. The site is potentially still recovering from a cyclone 45 years ago and regrowth from this event may also be contributing to the observed trends in sequestration, highlighting the need to understand fluxes and their drivers from sub-diurnal to decadal scales.},
  author       = {Hutley, Lindsay B. and Beringer, Jason and Fatichi, Simone and Schymanski, Stanislaus J. and Northwood, Matthew},
  issn         = {1365-2486},
  journal      = {Global Change Biology},
  keywords     = {CO2 fertilization, Ecosystem model, Eddy covariance, Howard Springs, Water use efficiency},
  number       = {7},
  pages        = {2360--2380},
  publisher    = {Wiley},
  title        = {{Gross primary productivity and water use efficiency are increasing in a high rainfall tropical savanna}},
  doi          = {10.1111/gcb.16012},
  volume       = {28},
  year         = {2022},
}

@article{22437,
  abstract     = {Changes in rainfall amounts and patterns have been observed and are expected to continue in the near future with potentially significant ecological and societal consequences. Modelling vegetation responses to changes in rainfall is thus crucial to project water and carbon cycles in the future. In this study, we present the results of a new model‐data intercomparison project, where we tested the ability of 10 terrestrial biosphere models to reproduce the observed sensitivity of ecosystem productivity to rainfall changes at 10 sites across the globe, in nine of which, rainfall exclusion and/or irrigation experiments had been performed. The key results are as follows: (a) Inter‐model variation is generally large and model agreement varies with timescales. In severely water‐limited sites, models only agree on the interannual variability of evapotranspiration and to a smaller extent on gross primary productivity. In more mesic sites, model agreement for both water and carbon fluxes is typically higher on fine (daily–monthly) timescales and reduces on longer (seasonal–annual) scales. (b) Models on average overestimate the relationship between ecosystem productivity and mean rainfall amounts across sites (in space) and have a low capacity in reproducing the temporal (interannual) sensitivity of vegetation productivity to annual rainfall at a given site, even though observation uncertainty is comparable to inter‐model variability. (c) Most models reproduced the sign of the observed patterns in productivity changes in rainfall manipulation experiments but had a low capacity in reproducing the observed magnitude of productivity changes. Models better reproduced the observed productivity responses due to rainfall exclusion than addition. (d) All models attribute ecosystem productivity changes to the intensity of vegetation stress and peak leaf area, whereas the impact of the change in growing season length is negligible. The relative contribution of the peak leaf area and vegetation stress intensity was highly variable among models.},
  author       = {Paschalis, Athanasios and Fatichi, Simone and Zscheischler, Jakob and Ciais, Philippe and Bahn, Michael and Boysen, Lena and Chang, Jinfeng and De Kauwe, Martin and Estiarte, Marc and Goll, Daniel and Hanson, Paul J. and Harper, Anna B. and Hou, Enqing and Kigel, Jaime and Knapp, Alan K. and Larsen, Klaus S. and Li, Wei and Lienert, Sebastian and Luo, Yiqi and Meir, Patrick and Nabel, Julia E. M. S. and Ogaya, Romà and Parolari, Anthony J. and Peng, Changhui and Peñuelas, Josep and Pongratz, Julia and Rambal, Serge and Schmidt, Inger K. and Shi, Hao and Sternberg, Marcelo and Tian, Hanqin and Tschumi, Elisabeth and Ukkola, Anna and Vicca, Sara and Viovy, Nicolas and Wang, Ying‐Ping and Wang, Zhuonan and Williams, Karina and Wu, Donghai and Zhu, Qiuan},
  issn         = {1365-2486},
  journal      = {Global Change Biology},
  number       = {6},
  pages        = {3336--3355},
  publisher    = {Wiley},
  title        = {{Rainfall manipulation experiments as simulated by terrestrial biosphere models: Where do we stand?}},
  doi          = {10.1111/gcb.15024},
  volume       = {26},
  year         = {2020},
}