Mengmei Zheng

TL;DR: There is an urgent need to explore the interactions among multiple global change drivers in underrepresented regions such as semi-arid ecosystems, forests in the tropics and subtropics, and Arctic tundra when forecasting future terrestrial carbon-climate feedback.

TL;DR: The observations of the additive effects of advanced and delayed precipitation peaks indicate semiarid grasslands will release less C through soil respiratory processes under the projected seasonal redistribution of precipitation in the future.

TL;DR: The observation highlighted herein, showing a high level of sensitivity with respect to functional traits (functionally categorized taxa or genes) in differentiating mild environmental disturbance, suggests that the key level at which to address microbial responses may not be “species” (by means of rRNA taxonomy), but rather at the functional gene level.

TL;DR: The findings indicate that arid and semi-arid ecosystems may not be sensitive to CO2 enrichment as previously expected and highlight the urgent need to incorporate this mechanism into most IPCC carbon-cycle models for convincing projection of terrestrial carbon sink and its feedback to climate change.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the flowering phenology of the dominant species in three temperate steppes (i.e. a desert, typical, and meadow steppe) along a precipitation gradient in response to simulated night warming and precipitation manipulation.