Links across ecological scales: Plant biomass responses to elevated CO.

The degree to which elevated CO concentrations (e[CO ]) 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 enrichment experiments and the lack of reconciliation between different ecological scales, the effect of e[CO ] on plant biomass stocks remains a major uncertainty in future climate projections. Here, we review the effect of e[CO ] on plant biomass across multiple levels of ecological organization, scaling from physiological responses to changes in population-, community-, ecosystem-, and global-scale dynamics.

Carbon Source Reduction Postpones Autumn Leaf Senescence in a Widespread Deciduous Tree.

The growing-season length of temperate and boreal trees has a strong effect on the global carbon cycle. Yet, a poor understanding of the drivers of phenological processes, such as autumn leaf senescence in deciduous trees, limits our capacity to estimate growing-season lengths under climate change. While temperature has been shown to be an important driver of autumn leaf senescence, carbon source-sink dynamics have been proposed as a mechanism that could help explain variation of this important process.

Correction: Understanding climate change from a global analysis of city analogues.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

Understanding climate change from a global analysis of city analogues.

Combating climate change requires unified action across all sectors of society. However, this collective action is precluded by the 'consensus gap' between scientific knowledge and public opinion. Here, we test the extent to which the iconic cities around the world are likely to shift in response to climate change.