Journal article
Atmospheric CO2 effect on stable carbon isotope composition of terrestrial fossil archives
- Abstract:
- The 13C/12C ratio of C3 plant matter is thought to be controlled by the isotopic composition of atmospheric CO2 and stomatal response to environmental conditions, particularly mean annual precipitation (MAP). The effect of CO2 concentration on 13C/12C ratios is currently debated, yet crucial to reconstructing ancient environments and quantifying the carbon cycle. Here we compare high-resolution ice core measurements of atmospheric CO2 with fossil plant and faunal isotope records. We show the effect of pCO2 during the last deglaciation is stronger for gymnosperms (-1.4 ± 1.2‰) than angiosperms/fauna (-0.5 ± 1.5‰), while the contributions from changing MAP are -0.3 ± 0.6‰ and -0.4 ± 0.4‰, respectively. Previous studies have assumed that plant 13C/12C ratios are mostly determined by MAP, an assumption which is sometimes incorrect in geological time. Atmospheric effects must be taken into account when interpreting terrestrial stable carbon isotopes, with important implications for past environments and climates, and understanding plant responses to climate change.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.6MB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41467-017-02691-x
Authors
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Journal:
- Nature Communications More from this journal
- Volume:
- 9
- Issue:
- 252
- Pages:
- 1-8
- Publication date:
- 2018-01-17
- Acceptance date:
- 2017-12-19
- DOI:
- ISSN:
-
2041-1723
- Pmid:
-
29343713
- Language:
-
English
- Pubs id:
-
pubs:820908
- UUID:
-
uuid:2d75334f-4bef-44ae-bb4d-e020ccfee5f1
- Local pid:
-
pubs:820908
- Source identifiers:
-
820908
- Deposit date:
-
2018-02-05
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- © Hare, et al 2018
- Copyright date:
- 2018
- Notes:
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record