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Article: Atmospheric [CO.sub.2] and Ecosystem Feedback Between C and N Cycles: Synthesis of an Integrated Experiment(1).
- Article from:
- Ecological Applications
- Article date:
- February 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Ecological Society of America. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Ecologists who are trying to unravel the response of the terrestrial carbon cycle to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration are faced with overwhelming issues of spatial and temporal scale. The goal is to understand the long-term, cumulative impact of global change on the metabolism of all terrestrial ecosystems, yet it is possible to conduct experiments only on relatively small plots within highly variable ecosystems and over short periods of time. Data from experiments, monitoring programs, and other research must be scaled up to ecosystem, regional, or global levels to describe the response of terrestrial ecosystems to rising [CO.sub.2].
These issues ...