The impacts of rising vapour pressure deficit in natural and managed ecosystems.

Darren L Ficklin, Lauren E L Lowman, Miriam R Johnston, Pierre Gentine, Matthew P Dannenberg, John T Abatzoglou, Alexandra J Wright, A Park Williams, Alexandra G Konings, Anna T Trugman, Kaiyu Guan, Nate G McDowell, Jordi Martínez-Vilalta, Charlotte Grossiord, David J P Moore, Walid Sadok, Kimberly A Novick

Journal: Plant, cell & environment 2024;47(9):3561-3589

PMID: 38348610

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Abstract

An exponential rise in the atmospheric vapour pressure deficit (VPD) is among the most consequential impacts of climate change in terrestrial ecosystems. Rising VPD has negative and cascading effects on nearly all aspects of plant function including photosynthesis, water status, growth and survival. These responses are exacerbated by land-atmosphere interactions that couple VPD to soil water and govern the evolution of drought, affecting a range of ecosystem services including carbon uptake, biodiversity, the provisioning of water resources and crop yields. However, despite the global nature of this phenomenon, research on how to incorporate these impacts into resilient management regimes is largely in its infancy, due in part to the entanglement of VPD trends with those of other co-evolving climate drivers. Here, we review the mechanistic bases of VPD impacts at a range of spatial scales, paying particular attention to the independent and interactive influence of VPD in the context of other environmental changes. We then evaluate the consequences of these impacts within key management contexts, including water resources, croplands, wildfire risk mitigation and management of natural grasslands and forests. We conclude with recommendations describing how management regimes could be altered to mitigate the otherwise highly deleterious consequences of rising VPD.

Address: O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA.; Department of Geography, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA.; Plant Ecology Research Laboratory (PERL), School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.; Community Ecology Unit, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape WSL, Lausanne, Switzerland.; Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.; CREAF, Bellaterra, Catalonia, Spain.; Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Catalonia, Spain.; Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.; Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA.; Department of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA.; Department of Biological Sciences, California State University Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA.; Management of Complex Systems Department, University of California, Merced, California, USA.; Department of Geographical and Sustainability Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA.; Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA.; Center for Learning the Earth with Artificial Intelligence and Physics (LEAP), Columbia University, New York, New York, USA.; Agroecosystem Sustainability Center, Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA.; Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, College of Agricultural, Consumers, and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA.; National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA.; Department of Engineering, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA.; School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA.; Atmospheric Sciences & Global Change Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington, USA.; School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA.

DOI: 10.1111/pce.14846

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MeSH Terms: Vapor Pressure, Ecosystem, Climate Change, Water, Droughts