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Abstract:
Plant traits are both responsive to local climate and strong predictors of primary productivity. We hypothesized that future climate change might promote a shift in global plant traits resulting
in changes in Gross Primary Productivity (GPP). We characterized the relationship between key
plant traits, namely Specific Leaf Area (SLA), height, and seed mass, and local climate and primary
productivity. We found that by 2070, tropical and arid ecosystems will be more suitable for plants with
relatively lower canopy height, SLA and seed mass, while far northern latitudes will favor woody and
taller plants than at present. Using a network of tower eddy covariance CO2 flux measurements and
the extrapolated plant trait maps, we estimated the global distribution of annual GPP under current
and projected future plant community distribution. We predict that annual GPP in northern biomes
(≥45 °N) will increase by 31% (+8.1 ± 0.5 Pg C), but this will be offset by a 17.9% GPP decline in the
tropics (−11.8 ± 0.84 Pg C). These findings suggest that regional climate changes will affect plant trait distributions, which may in turn affect global productivity patterns.
