Peter B Reich

University of Minnesota | UMN · Forest Resources

Understanding the responses of ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi and their tree hosts to warming and reduced soil water availability under realistic future climate scenarios is essential, yet few studies have investigated how combined global change stressors impact ECM fungal community richness and composition as well as host performance. In this study,...

Forests harbor extensive biodiversity and act as a strong global carbon and nitrogen sink. Although enhancing tree diversity has been shown to mitigate climate change by sequestering more carbon and nitrogen in biomass and soils in manipulative experiments, it is still unknown how varying environmental gradients, such as gradients in resource avail...

The use of trait-based approaches to understand ecological communities has increased in the past two decades because of their promise to preserve more information about community structure than taxonomic methods and their potential to connect community responses to subsequent effects of ecosystem functioning. Though trait-based approaches are a pow...

Disturbances, such as hurricanes, fires, droughts, and pest outbreaks, can cause major changes in ecosystem conditions that threaten nature’s contributions to people (ecosystem services). However, approaches to assess these impacts on diverse services under climate change are rare. To advance such efforts, we build on the accelerating research on d...

Surface ozone (O3) is the primary air pollutant threatening global vegetation. It typically reduces the photosynthetic rate and stomatal conductance, leading to changes in carbon, water, and energy cycles; vegetation structure and composition; and climate. Several parameterization schemes have been developed to integrate the photosynthetic and stom...

The effects of long-term climate warming on soil respiration and its drivers remain unclear in forests, which store approximately 40% of global soil carbon. Here we conducted a climate change experiment for 13 years in forest plots planted with tree juveniles at two southern boreal forest sites. Treatments included simultaneous above- and below-gro...

Grasslands are integral to maintaining biodiversity and key ecosystem services and are under threat from climate change. Plant and soil microbial diversity, and their interactions, support the provision of multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality). However, it remains virtually unknown whether plant and soil microbial diversity explain a un...

Photosynthetic acclimation to both warming and elevated CO 2 of boreal trees remains a key uncertainty in modelling the response of photosynthesis to future climates. We investigated the impact of increased growth temperature and elevated CO 2 on photosynthetic capacity ( V cmax and J max ) in mature trees of two North American boreal conifers, tam...

Aim Understanding the mechanisms promoting resilience in plant communities is crucial in times of increasing disturbance and global environmental change. Here, we present the first meta‐analysis evaluating the relationship between functional diversity and resilience of plant communities. Specifically, we tested whether the resilience of plant commu...

Plant functional groups (FGs) differ in their response to global changes, although species within those groups also vary in such responses. Both species and FG responses to global change are likely influenced by species interactions such as inter‐specific competition and facilitation, which are prevalent in species mixtures but not monocultures. As...

Surface albedo can affect the energy budget and subsequently cause localized warming or cooling of the climate. When we convert a substantial portion of lands to agriculture, land surface properties are consequently altered, including albedo. Through crop selection and management, one can increase crop albedo to obtain higher levels of localized co...

Aim: Ecological and anthropogenic factors shift the abundances of dominant and rare tree species within local forest communities, thus affecting species composition and ecosystem functioning. To inform forest and conservation management it is important to understand the drivers of dominance and rarity in local tree communities. We answer the follow...

The importance of phosphorus (P) in regulating ecosystem responses to climate change has fostered P-cycle implementation in land surface models, but their CO 2 effects predictions have not been evaluated against measurements. Here, we perform a data-driven model evaluation where simulations of eight widely used P-enabled models were confronted with...

Foliar traits such as specific leaf area (SLA), leaf nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) concentrations play important roles in plant economic strategies and ecosystem functioning. Various global maps of these foliar traits have been generated using statistical upscaling approaches based on in-situ trait observations. Here, we intercompare such global...

Decades of studies have demonstrated links between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, yet the generality of the relationships and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear, especially for forest ecosystems. Using 11 tree‐diversity experiments, we tested tree species richness–community productivity relationships and the role of arbuscular (AM) o...

The capacity for terrestrial ecosystems to sequester additional carbon (C) with rising CO2 concentrations depends on soil nutrient availability1,2. Previous evidence suggested that mature forests growing on phosphorus (P)-deprived soils had limited capacity to sequester extra biomass under elevated CO2 (refs. 3–6), but uncertainty about ecosystem P...

In the past few decades, there has been an evolution in our understanding of soil organic matter (SOM) dynamics from one of inherent biochemical recalcitrance to one deriving from plant‐microbe‐mineral interactions. This shift in understanding has been driven, in part, by influential conceptual frameworks which put forth hypotheses about SOM dynami...

The emergence of alternative stable states in forest systems has significant implications for the functioning and structure of the terrestrial biosphere, yet empirical evidence remains scarce. Here, we combine global forest biodiversity observations and simulations to test for alternative stable states in the presence of evergreen and deciduous for...

The manipulation of pre-colonial disturbances in U.S. forests can play a critical role in determining ecological composition, structure, and function. However, our understanding of how concurrent disturbances influence non-tree species is extremely limited in forests. To this end, we used a long-term, multi-disturbance experiment in an oak dominate...

Carbon influences the evolution and functioning of plants and their roots. Previous work examining a small number of commonly measured root traits has revealed a global multidimensionality of the resource economics traits in fine roots considering carbon as primary currency but without considering the diversity of carbon-related traits. To address...

Plant disease often increases with N, decreases with CO2, and increases as biodiversity is lost (i.e., the dilution effect). Additionally, all these factors can indirectly alter disease by changing host biomass and hence density-dependent disease transmission. Yet over long periods of time as communities undergo compositional changes, these biomass...

Animal trait data are scattered across several datasets, making it challenging to compile and compare trait information across different groups. For plants, the TRY database has been an unwavering success for those ecologists interested in addressing how plant traits influence a wide variety of processes and patterns, but the same is not true for m...

Fine root lifespan is a critical trait associated with contrasting root strategies of resource acquisition and protection. Yet, its position within the multidimensional “root economics space” synthesizing global root economics strategies is largely uncertain, and it is rarely represented in frameworks integrating plant trait variations. Here, we co...

1. Enhancing tree diversity may be important to fostering resilience to drought-related climate extremes. So far, little attention has been given to whether tree diversity can increase the survival of trees and reduce its variability in young forest plantations. 2. We conducted an analysis of seedling and sapling survival from 34 globally distribut...

Surface ozone (O3) is the primary air pollutant threatening global vegetation. It typically reduces photosynthetic rate and stomatal conductance, leading to changes in carbon, water, and energy cycles, vegetation structure and composition, and climate. Several parameterization schemes have been developed to integrate the photosynthetic and stomatal...

Deforestation poses a global threat to biodiversity and its capacity to deliver ecosystem services. Yet, the impacts of deforestation on soil biodiversity and its associated ecosystem services remain virtually unknown. We generated a global dataset including 696 paired-site observations to investigate how native forest conversion to other land uses...

Effects of plant diversity on grassland productivity, or overyielding, are found to be robust to nutrient enrichment. However, the impact of cumulative nitrogen (N) addition (total N added over time) on overyielding and its drivers are underexplored. Synthesizing data from 15 multi-year grassland biodiversity experiments with N addition, we found t...

Plant diversity effects on community productivity often increase over time. Whether the strengthening of diversity effects is caused by temporal shifts in species-level overyielding (i.e., higher species-level productivity in diverse communities compared with monocultures) remains unclear. Here, using data from 65 grassland and forest biodiversity...

Pesticides have well-documented negative consequences to control crop pests, and natural predators are alternatives and can provide an ecosystem service as biological control agents. However, there remains considerable uncertainty regarding whether such biological control can be a widely applicable solution, especially given ongoing climatic variat...

Stem respiration is a key driver of carbon flux from ecosystems to the atmosphere, yet its response to global warming remains poorly constrained. In particular it has been proposed that stem respiration acclimates to changing temperatures, which could have large implications for carbon cycling under climate change, but no theory exists to predict a...

The density of wood is a key indicator of trees’ carbon investment strategies, impacting productivity and carbon storage. Despite its importance, the global variation in wood density and its environmental controls remain poorly understood, preventing accurate predictions of global forest carbon stocks. Here, we analyze information from 1.1 million...

Improved understanding of bacterial community responses to multiple environmental filters over long time periods is a fundamental step to develop mechanistic explanations of plant–bacterial interactions as environmental change progresses. This is the first study to examine responses of grassland root‐associated bacterial communities to 15 years of...

Purpose of Review International ambitions for massive afforestation and restoration are high. To make these investments sustainable and resilient under future climate change, science is calling for a shift from planting monocultures to mixed forests. But what is the scientific basis for promoting diverse plantations, and what is the feasibility of...

Predators may adapt to global warming via behavioural plasticity. However, empirical evidence showing such adaptations in terrestrial ecosystems is scarce. Here we report behavioural shifts that alter the web mesh size of two dominant predatory spider species in response to experimental warming in an alpine meadow field. Experimental large open-top...

Nature-based climate solutions, such as forest landscape restoration, offer a promising approach to mitigate the effects of global climate change, conserve biodiversity, and enhance rural livelihoods. Heinrich et al. (Nature, 2023) used satellite observation products to assess rates and drivers of aboveground carbon accumulation in tropical recover...

Background and Aims The form-function linkages and variation of fine root traits reflect adaptive strategies to cope with complex soil environments. However, their contributions to the root economics spectrum (RES) remain unclear. Methods We measured thirteen functional traits in the first four root orders of 59 subtropical woody species, includin...

Aim To determine the relationships between the functional trait composition of forest communities and environmental gradients across scales and biomes and the role of species relative abundances in these relationships. Location Global. Time period Recent. Major taxa studied Trees. Methods We integrated species abundance records from worldw...

In the past few decades, there has been an evolution in our understanding of soil organic matter (SOM) dynamics from one of inherent biochemical recalcitrance to one deriving from plant-microbe-mineral interactions. This shift in understanding has been driven, in part, by influential conceptual frameworks which put forth hypotheses about SOM dynami...

Tropical and subtropical forests play a crucial role in global carbon (C) pools, and their responses to warming can significantly impact C‐climate feedback and predictions of future global warming. Despite earth system models projecting reductions in land C storage with warming, the magnitude of this response varies greatly between models, particul...

Forests are a substantial terrestrial carbon sink, but anthropogenic changes in land use and climate have considerably reduced the scale of this system¹. Remote-sensing estimates to quantify carbon losses from global forests2–5 are characterized by considerable uncertainty and we lack a comprehensive ground-sourced evaluation to benchmark these est...

Although decades of research suggest that higher species richness improves ecosystem functioning and stability, planted forests are predominantly monocultures. To determine whether diversification of plantations would enhance aboveground carbon storage, we systematically reviewed over 11,360 publications, and acquired data from a global network of...

The migration of trees induced by climatic warming has been observed at many alpine treelines and boreal–tundra ecotones, but the migration of temperate trees into southern boreal forest remains less well documented. We conducted a field investigation across an ecotone of temperate and boreal forests in northern Greater Khingan Mountains of northea...

Biodiversity-function relationships in ecosystems are known to be driven by environmental conditions, including climate change. Plant functional groups (PFGs), specifically their evolutionary history, nitrogen-fixation capacity or photosynthetic-pathway likely play a critical role in shaping microbial communities and their impact on ecosystem funct...

Rising atmospheric vapour pressure deficit (VPD) associated with climate change affects boreal forest growth via stomatal closure and soil dryness. However, the relationship between VPD and forest growth depends on the climatic context. Here we assess Canadian boreal forest responses to VPD changes from 1951-2018 using a well-replicated tree-growth...

Leaf dark respiration (Rd) acclimates to environmental changes. However, the magnitude, controls and time scales of acclimation remain unclear and are inconsistently treated in ecosystem models. We hypothesized that Rd and Rubisco carboxylation capacity (Vcmax) at 25°C (Rd,25, Vcmax,25) are coordinated so that Rd,25 variations support Vcmax,25 at a...

Understanding what controls global leaf type variation in trees is crucial for comprehending their role in terrestrial ecosystems, including carbon, water and nutrient dynamics. Yet our understanding of the factors influencing forest leaf types remains incomplete, leaving us uncertain about the global proportions of needle-leaved, broadleaved, ever...

The determinants of fire-driven changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) across broad environmental gradients remains unclear, especially in global drylands. Here we combined datasets and field sampling of fire-manipulation experiments to evaluate where and why fire changes SOC and compared our statistical model to simulations from ecosystem models. Dr...

Grassland and other herbaceous communities cover significant portions of Earth's terrestrial surface and provide many critical services, such as carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, and food production. Forecasts of global change impacts on these services will require predictive tools, such as process‐based dynamic vegetation models. Yet, model...

Due to the temperature sensitivity of many plant and microbial processes, climate warming generally stimulates terrestrial ecosystem respiration (ER), the largest land-to-air CO 2 flux annually. However, climate change is also steadily enhancing drought risk in most regions on the Earth, and given sensitivity of plant and microbial metabolism to so...

Determining the drivers of non-native plant invasions is critical for managing native ecosystems and limiting the spread of invasive species1,2. Tree invasions in particular have been relatively overlooked, even though they have the potential to transform ecosystems and economies3,4. Here, leveraging global tree databases5-7, we explore how the phy...

The interaction networks formed by ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) and their tree hosts, which are important to both forest recruitment and ecosystem carbon and nutrient retention, may be particularly susceptible to climate change at the boreal-temperate forest ecotone where environmental conditions are changing rapidly. Here, we quantified the composi...

Warming shifts the thermal optimum of net photosynthesis (ToptA) to higher temperatures. However, our knowledge of this shift is mainly derived from seedlings grown in greenhouses under ambient atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) conditions. It is unclear whether shifts in ToptA of field-grown trees will keep pace with the temperatures predicted for t...

Fire is an important process in savanna as well as forest ecosystems, but its effects on herbaceous vegetation across biomes remain unelucidated. In theory, fire- vegetation feedbacks maintain the vegetation structure of both savannas and forests. In savannas, a continuous layer of highly flammable herbaceous vegetation promotes frequent fires, whi...

Fundamental axes of variation in plant traits result from trade-offs between costs and benefits of resource-use strategies at the leaf scale. However, it is unclear whether similar trade-offs propagate to the ecosystem level. Here, we test whether trait correlation patterns predicted by three well-known leaf- and plant-level coordination theories –...

The persistence of invasive plant species in soil seedbanks can pose a significant obstacle to effectively managing invasive plant populations. Rhamnus cathartica (common buckthorn, hereafter ‘buckthorn’) is a wide-spread invader of forest understories in North America that can quickly re-establish following removal, in part due to germination of b...

Aim Angiosperm epiphytes have long been reported to have larger geographic ranges than terrestrial species, despite evidence of their outstanding diversity and endemism. This apparent contradiction calls for further investigation of epiphytes' poorly understood range size patterns. Here, we address the question of whether epiphytes have larger geog...

Australia’s distinctive biogeography means that it is sometimes considered an ecologically unique continent with biological and abiotic features that are not comparable to those observed in the rest of the world. This leaves some researchers unclear as to whether findings from Australia apply to systems elsewhere (or vice-versa), which has conseque...