An object-based verification approach is employed to assess the performance of the commonly used high-resolution satellite precipitation products: Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks (PERSIANN), Climate Prediction center MORPHing technique (CMORPH), and Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMP...

We examined the response of the normalized difference vegetation index, integrated over the growing season (gNDVI) to mean precipitation, maximum temperature (Tmax), and minimum temperature (Tmin) over an 11-year period (1990–2000) for six biomes in the conterminous United States. We focused on withinand across-biome variance in longterm average gNDVI, emphasizing the degree to which this varia...

Expected changes in precipitation over large regions of the world under global climate change will have profound effects on terrestrial ecosystems in arid and semiarid regions. To explore how changes in the amount of precipitation in the growing season would affect soil nitrogen (N) availability in a semiarid ecosystem, we established rainout shelters and irrigation systems by simulating 30% re...

The climate–growth relationship of larch (Larix decidua Mill.) in the Polish Carpathian Mountains was studied. We explored the spatial variability of the common signal observed in larch tree-ring growth, distinguished regions with uniform tree-ring growth patterns (dendrochronological signal), and determined the climatic factors that are particularly important for the growth of larch in this ar...

[1] Permafrost thaw can affect decomposition rates by changing environmental conditions and litter quality. As permafrost thaws, soils warm and thermokarst (ground subsidence) features form, causing some areas to become wetter while other areas become drier. We used a common substrate to measure how permafrost thaw affects decomposition rates in the surface soil in a natural permafrost thaw gra...

This study investigated spatial patterns and environmental controls of aboveground biomass (AGB) in alpine grasslands on the Tibetan Plateau by integrating AGB data collected from 135 sites during 2001– 2004 and concurrent enhanced vegetation index derived from MODIS data sets. The AGB was estimated at 68.8 gm 2, with a larger value (90.8 gm 2) in alpine meadow than in alpine steppe (50.1 gm 2)...

PREMISE OF THE STUDY The evolutionary drivers and proximal regulators of mast-seeding are well understood for species of mesic environments, but how these regulators interact with high spatial and interannual variability in growing-season precipitation for a masting species in a desert environment has never been examined. METHOD We followed flowering and seed production in 16 populations of t...

Responses of soil respiration (Rs) to anthropogenic climate change will affect terrestrial carbon storage and, thus, feed back to warming. To provide insight into how warming and changes in precipitation regimes affect the rate and temperature sensitivity of Rs and rhizosphere respiration (Rr) across the year, we subjected a New England old-field ecosystem to four levels of warming and three le...

Recent studies indicate that positive relationships between invasive plants and soil can contribute to further plant invasions. However, it remains unclear whether these relations remain unchanged throughout the growing season. In this study, spatial sequences of field observations along a transect were used to reveal seasonal interactions and spatially covarying relations between one common in...