In the first side-by-side large-scale trials of these two C(4) crops in the U.S. Corn Belt, Miscanthus (Miscanthus x giganteus) was 59% more productive than grain maize (Zea mays). Total productivity is the product of the total solar radiation incident per unit land area and the efficiencies of light interception (epsilon(i)) and its conversion into aboveground biomass (epsilon(ca)). Averaged o...

Elevated atmospheric CO2 increases plant C fixation, and much of the soluble C content of deciduous leaf litter entering streams is leached as dissolved organic C (DOC). The effects of DOC from trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides Michaux) leaf litter grown under elevated (ELEV 1⁄4 720 ppm) and ambient (AMB1⁄4 360 ppm) CO2 on stream periphyton were measured during a 35-d experiment in outdoor a...

Traditional management practices are usually thought to be sustainable. The Maya manage Sabal (Arecaceae) palms in homegardens, using their leaves for thatching. The sustainability of such production systems depends on the long-term persistence of palm populations, whereas resource availability also depends on the number of leaves on individual palms. We examined how leaf harvest affects Sabal ...

Deciduous forests covered the ice-free polar regions 280 to 40 million years ago under warm "greenhouse" climates and high atmospheric pCO2. Their deciduous habit is frequently interpreted as an adaptation for minimizing carbon losses during winter, but experiments with "living fossils" in a simulated warm polar environment refute this explanation. Measured carbon losses through leaf abscission...

[1] We propose the Breathing Earth System Simulator (BESS), an upscaling approach to quantify global gross primary productivity and evapotranspiration using MODIS with a spatial resolution of 1–5 km and a temporal resolution of 8 days. This effort is novel because it is the first system that harmonizes and utilizes MODIS Atmosphere and Land products on the same projection and spatial resolution...

Mixed tree–grass vegetation is important globally at ecotones between grasslands and forests. To address uncertainties vis-à-vis productivity and nitrogen (N) cycling in such systems we studied 20 mature oak savanna stands, ranging from 90% woody dominated to 80% herbaceous dominated, growing on comparable soils in a 32-yr-old fire frequency experiment in Minnesota, USA. Fire frequencies ranged...

The need for medicinal and aromatic plants for industrial uses creates an opportunity for farmers to produce alternative crops. Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni, a perennial shrub originating from Paraguay, is of increasing interest as a source of zero-calorie natural sweeteners: the steviol glycosides (SVglys). The aim of this study was to investigate the relevance of nitrogen (N) supply for leaf yie...

Quantifying the mechanistic links between carbon fluxes and forest canopy attributes will advance understanding of leaf-to-ecosystem scaling and its potential application to assessing terrestrial ecosystem metabolism. Important advances have been made, but prior studies that related carbon fluxes to multiple canopy traits are scarce. Herein, presenting data for 128 cold temperate and boreal for...

In vitro studies with chloroplasts isolated from maize populations differing in juvenile productivity by the sixth leaf stage of growth demonstrated differences in rates of ferricyanide reduction and of non-cyclic photophosphorylation. Similar results were obtained for two independent sets of replicate selections for high and for low productivity. Chloroplasts from low productive selections had...