Seminar: Gabriela Sophia

Terrestrial ecosystems currently absorb a substantial fraction of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions, helping to buffer climate change. However, this capacity may decline as plant growth becomes increasingly constrained by nutrient availability, particularly nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). This PhD thesis investigates nutrient resorption - the process by which plants recover nutrients from leaves before they are shed - as an overlooked mechanism in land surface models (LSMs) used to project future climate-biosphere interactions. Combining global ecological datasets with model development and simulations using the QUINCY land surface model (LSM), this work identifies the ecological controls of nutrient resorption and introduces a dynamic representation of N resorption into ecosystem modelling. The results show that plant nutrient resorption can substantially influence ecosystem productivity and carbon storage, highlighting the importance of incorporating dynamic ecological mechanisms into LSMs to improve climate projections.