Plant Ecology, University of Bayreuth, Universitaetsstrasse 30, 95447 Bayreuth, Germany.
Organization for Tropical Studies, P.O. Box 33, Skukuza, 1350, South Africa.
Science. 2023 Jun 9;380(6649):1038-1042. doi: 10.1126/science.add5190. Epub 2023 Jun 8.
One of the foundational premises of ecology is that climate determines ecosystems. This has been challenged by alternative ecosystem state models, which illustrate that internal ecosystem dynamics acting on the initial ecosystem state can overwhelm the influence of climate, and by observations suggesting that climate cannot reliably discriminate forest and savanna ecosystem types. Using a novel phytoclimatic transform, which estimates the ability of climate to support different types of plants, we show that climatic suitability for evergreen trees and C4 grasses are sufficient to discriminate between forest and savanna in Africa. Our findings reassert the dominant influence of climate on ecosystems and suggest that the role of feedbacks causing alternative ecosystem states is less prevalent than has been suggested.
生态学的一个基本前提是气候决定生态系统。这一前提受到了替代生态系统状态模型的挑战，这些模型表明，作用于初始生态系统状态的内部生态系统动态可以压倒气候的影响，并且有观测表明，气候无法可靠地区分森林和热带草原生态系统类型。我们使用一种新颖的植物气候转换方法，该方法估计了气候支持不同类型植物的能力，表明在非洲，常绿树木和 C4 草类的气候适宜性足以区分森林和热带草原。我们的研究结果再次强调了气候对生态系统的主导影响，并表明导致替代生态系统状态的反馈作用的作用并不像之前所认为的那样普遍。
