Publications

Proietti, C; Anav, A; De Marco, A; Sicard, P; Vitale, M (2016). A multi-sites analysis on the ozone effects on Gross Primary Production of European forests. SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT, 556, 1-11.

Abstract
Ozone (O-3) is both a greenhouse gas and a secondary air pollutant causing adverse impacts on forests ecosystems at different scales, from cellular to ecosystem level. Specifically, the phytotoxic nature of O-3 can impair CO2 assimilation that, in turn affects forest productivity. This study aims to evaluate the effects of tropospheric O-3 on Gross Primary Production (GPP) at 37 European forest sites during the time period 2000-2010. Due to the lack of carbon assimilation data at O-3 monitoring stations (and vice-versa) this study makes a first attempt to combine high resolution MODIS Gross Primary Production (GPP) estimates and O-3 measurement data. Partial Correlations, Anomalies Analysis and the Random Forests Analysis (RFA) were used to quantify the effects of tropospheric O-3 concentration and its uptake on GPP and to evaluate the most important factors affecting inter-annual GPP changes. Our results showed, along a North-West/South-East European transect, a negative impact of O-3 on GPP ranging from 0.4% to 30%, although a key role of meteorological parameters respect to pollutant variables in affecting GPP was found. In particular, meteorological parameters, namely air temperature (T), soil water content (SWC) and relative humidity (RH) are the most important predictors at 81% of test sites. Moreover, it is interesting to highlight a key role of SWC in the Mediterranean areas (Spanish, Italian and French test sites) confirming that, soil moisture and soil water availability affect vegetation growth and photosynthesis especially in arid or semi-arid ecosystems such as the Mediterranean climate regions. Considering the pivotal role of GPP in the global carbon balance and the O-3 ability to reduce primary productivity of the forests, this study can help in assessing the O-3 impacts on ecosystem services, including wood production and carbon sequestration. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

DOI:
10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.02.187

ISSN:
0048-9697