Abstract
The temperature response of ecosystem processes is key to understand and predict impacts of climate change. This is especially true for respiration, given its high temperature sensitivity and major role in the global carbon cycle. However, similar intrinsic temperature sensitivity for respiration does not mean comparable temperature effects across ecosystems and biomes because non-temperature factors can be more important. Here we analyzed soil and sediment respiration data and found that in temperature ranges corresponding to high latitude mean temperatures, absolute respiration rates are more sensitive to non-temperature factors than to projected direct temperature effects. However, at higher temperatures (>20 °C) the direct effect of temperature mediated by temperature sensitivity will likely be more important over changes in non-temperature factors in shaping how respiration change over time. This supports past suggestions that the relatively small projected temperature increase at low (tropical) latitudes may have a large direct impact on absolute respiration. In contrast, absolute respiration rates at high (boreal/arctic) latitudes will likely be more sensitive on the development of the non-temperature factors than on the direct effects of the large projected temperature increase there. Social media abstract. Respiration may be less dependent to changes in temperature at higher than lower latitudes.
Highlights
Heterotrophic respiration is a key process in the carbon cycle of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems
For sediments, a greater absolute increase in respiration rates with temperature was observed at high A in spite of a lower b in this sediment
When soil respiration was considered, our analysis show that changes in indirect factors affecting A, are likely to be very important for respiration rates in low-temperature environments such as the Boreal (figure 3(a))
Summary
Heterotrophic respiration is a key process in the carbon cycle of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. There has been considerable interest in describing the temperature influence on ecological processes such as primary production and respiration. This temperature effect is central to the metabolic theory in ecology, e.g., in scaling metabolic processes from individual to ecosystem level (Allen et al 2005, Allen and Gillooly 2007). Several terms have been used to describe the change in metabolic rates with changing temperature, such as temperature dependence and temperature sensitivity, which are not necessarily interchangeable. Temperature sensitivity directly links temperature and metabolism, and can be expressed as an absolute value or as the proportional metabolic rate change per unit change in temperature (Sierra 2011)
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