Belcher, CM, Mills, BJW orcid.org/0000-0002-9141-0931, Vitali, R et al. (3 more authors) (2021) The rise of angiosperms strengthened fire feedbacks and improved the regulation of atmospheric oxygen. Nature Communications, 12. 503. ISSN 2041-1723
Abstract
The source of oxygen to Earth’s atmosphere is organic carbon burial, whilst the main sink is oxidative weathering of fossil carbon. However, this sink is to insensitive to counteract oxygen rising above its current level of about 21%. Biogeochemical models suggest that wildfires provide an additional regulatory feedback mechanism. However, none have considered how the evolution of different plant groups through time have interacted with this feedback. The Cretaceous Period saw not only super-ambient levels of atmospheric oxygen but also the evolution of the angiosperms, that then rose to dominate Earth’s ecosystems. Here we show, using the COPSE biogeochemical model, that angiosperm-driven alteration of fire feedbacks likely lowered atmospheric oxygen levels from ~30% to 25% by the end of the Cretaceous. This likely set the stage for the emergence of closed-canopy angiosperm tropical rainforests that we suggest would not have been possible without angiosperm enhancement of fire feedbacks.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2021. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Earth Surface Science Institute (ESSI) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/S009663/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 08 Jan 2021 11:59 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 22:32 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Research |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41467-020-20772-2 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:169824 |