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Growth Rate Overrides Longer Growing Season for Conifers, Study Finds
Key Takeaways
- A new paper in Science, Volume 393, Issue 6816, pages 1101-1106, argues that growth rate overrides the benefit of an extended growing season in conifers.
- The study's scope spans boreal forests, limited by cold, and semiarid woodlands, limited by water.
- A longer growing season is an opportunity rather than a guaranteed gain, since water stress, frost risk, respiration, and nutrient limits can prevent extra days from becoming extra growth.
- The finding suggests carbon projections that treat longer seasons as automatic productivity gains may overestimate forest carbon uptake.
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DT Editorial Team··via science.org