Global changes have profoundly effects on plant water use efficiency (WUE) and N availability (NA) in forests. Large-scale geographic gradients provide an opportunity to determine how global changes affect plant WUE and NA.

Recently, researchers led by Dr. KUANG Yuanwen from Southern China Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that the latitudinal and longitudinal patterns of plant WUE and NA across China’s forests and their driving factors are significantly different, with plant WUE increased along latitude but without changes along longitude. The nitrogen availability decreased with latitude but did not change along longitude in China’s forests. They identified that plant water use efficiency and nitrogen availability were regulated by multiple factors related to both atmosphere, plant, and soils and suggested that more environmental factors should be fully considered in predicting or assessing how global changes affect the functions or processes of terrestrial ecosystems.

This study entitled “Multiple environmental factors regulate the large-scale patterns of plant water use efficiency and nitrogen availability across China’s forests” has been published in Environmental Research Letters. For further reading, please refer to: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abe3bb.