Environmental drivers of biomass production and growth efficiency in arctic terrestrial ecosystems

Environmental drivers of biomass production and growth efficiency in arctic terrestrial ecosystems 

 Matteo Campioli, Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Belgium 

 Biomass production (BP) is a key process of plant and ecosystem functioning. At individual level, BP is the output of all plant processes (e.g. photosynthesis, respiration, nutrient uptake) and interactions (e.g. climate-plant and plant-microbes feedbacks). At ecosystem level, BP represents the amount of carbon accumulated annually in the ecosystem, thus a crucial determinant of the long-term CO2 exchange between the ecosystem and the atmosphere. Here, the environmental drivers of BP of arctic and subarctic ecosystems will be presented for different scales and settings: from individual plants (e.g. shrub species) in natural or manipulated (e.g. warmed) dry tundra heath to ecosystem level BP for various types of tundra and boreal peatlands across the northern hemisphere. Furthermore, the ‘efficiency’ of the BP process in arctic ecosystems (indicating how much of the carbon taken up by photosynthesis is effectively invested in BP) will be reported and compared to the efficiency of natural and managed terrestrial ecosystems from other climatic zones. 

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