@article {KNZ001739,
	title = {Productivity of North American grasslands is increased under future climate scenarios despite rising aridity},
	journal = {Nature Climate Change},
	volume = {6},
	year = {2016},
	pages = {710-714},
	abstract = {<p>Grassland productivity is regulated by both temperature and the amount and timing of precipitation1, 2. Future climate change is therefore expected to influence grassland phenology and growth, with consequences for ecosystems and economies. However, the interacting effects of major shifts in temperature and precipitation on grasslands remain poorly understood and existing modelling approaches, although typically complex, do not extrapolate or generalize well and tend to disagree under future scenarios3, 4. Here we explore the potential responses of North American grasslands to climate change using a new, data-informed vegetation\&ndash;hydrological model, a network of high-frequency ground observations across a wide range of grassland ecosystems and CMIP5 climate projections. Our results suggest widespread and consistent increases in vegetation fractional cover for the current range of grassland ecosystems throughout most of North America, despite the increase in aridity projected across most of our study area. Our analysis indicates a likely future shift of vegetation growth towards both earlier spring emergence and delayed autumn senescence, which would compensate for drought-induced reductions in summer fractional cover and productivity. However, because our model does not include the effects of rising atmospheric CO2 on photosynthesis and water use efficiency5, 6, climate change impacts on grassland productivity may be even larger than our results suggest. Increases in the productivity of North American grasslands over this coming century have implications for agriculture, carbon cycling and vegetation feedbacks to the atmosphere.</p>},
	keywords = {LTER-KNZ},
	issn = {1758-678X},
	doi = {10.1038/nclimate2942},
	url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2942},
	author = {Hufkens, K. and Keenan, T.F. and Flanagan, L.B. and Scott, R.L. and Bernacchi, C.J. and Joo, E. and N. Brunsell and Verfaillie, J. and Richardson, A.D.}
}
@article {KNZ001709,
	title = {The sensitivity of carbon exchanges in Great Plains grasslands to precipitation variability},
	journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences},
	volume = {121},
	year = {2016},
	pages = {280-294},
	abstract = {<p>In the Great Plains, grassland carbon dynamics differ across broad gradients of precipitation and temperature, yet finer-scale variation in these variables may also affect grassland processes. Despite the importance of grasslands, there is little information on how fine-scale relationships compare between them regionally. We compared grassland C exchanges, energy partitioning and precipitation variability in eight sites in the eastern and western Great Plains using eddy covariance and meteorological data. During our study, both eastern and western grasslands varied between an average net carbon sink and a net source. Eastern grasslands had a moderate vapor pressure deficit (VPD = 0.95 kPa) and high growing season gross primary productivity (GPP = 1010 \&plusmn; 218 g C m\&minus;2 m\&minus;2 y\&minus;1). Western grasslands had a growing season with higher VPD (1.43 kPa) and lower GPP (360 \&plusmn; 127 g C m\&minus;2 m\&minus;2 y\&minus;1). Western grasslands were sensitive to precipitation at daily timescales, whereas eastern grasslands were sensitive at monthly and seasonal timescales. Our results support the expectation that C exchanges in these grasslands differ as a result of varying precipitation regimes. Because eastern grasslands are less influenced by short-term variability in rainfall than western grasslands, the effects of precipitation change are likely to be more predictable in eastern grasslands because the timescales of variability that must be resolved are relatively longer. We postulate increasing regional heterogeneity in grassland C exchanges in the Great Plains in coming decades.</p>},
	keywords = {LTER-KNZ},
	doi = {10.1002/2015JG003205},
	url = {https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2015JG003205},
	author = {Petrie, M.D. and N. Brunsell and Vargas, R. and Scott. L. Collins and Flanagan, L.B. and Hanan, N.P. and Litvak, M.E. and Suyker, A.E.}
}
