Recently, professors from the College of Geographical Sciences of FNU published an academic paper titled “Allometry of Fine Roots in Forest Ecosystems” in Ecology Letters, a top international journal of ecology, with Pro. Chen Guangshui as the first author, Pro. Chen Guangshui and Pro. Yang Yusheng as the corresponding authors, and Fujian Normal University as the primary and corresponding address. Co-authors of the paper include Pro. Sarah Hobbie and Pro. Peter Reich from the University of Minnesota, USA, and Pro. David Robinson from the University of Aberdeen, UK.
Although forest fine roots only account for a small percentage of biomass, their turnover rate increases rapidly and each year they can consume one third of the net primary production, thus playing a significant role in forest carbon and nutrition cycling. Therefore, they become an important parameter in various ecosystem models. However, today many ecosystem models still lack theoretical predictions regarding fine root production. FNU researchers, by expanding the classic pipe model to fine roots, are able to predict isometric scaling relationships between leaf and fine root biomass and among all major biomass production components of individual trees and verify these relationships using existing databases. The findings provide means of theoretical predictions regarding forest fine root biomass and production, and contribute to the theoretical understanding of allometry of fine roots and distribution of belowground carbon in forest ecosystems.
Ecology Letters is one of the most influential international journals on ecology, and a source periodical of natural index (one of the five in environmental science and ecology), with an average impact factor of 11.775 in recent five years. The journal only publishes some 100 papers each year. In the past 20 years, Chinese scholars have published about 30 papers in the journal and this is the first time for FNU professors to publish a paper in it.
Link to the paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ele.13193
(Translated by Huang Lijun Reviewed by Liang Li’e)
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