Impact of annual and seasonal precipitation and air temperature on gross primary production in Mediterranean ecosystems in Europe

Abstract. Mediterranean ecosystems are significant carbon sinks but are also particularly sensitive to climate change but the carbon dynamic in such ecosystem is still not fully understood. An improved understanding of the drivers of the carbon fixation by plants is needed to better predict how such ecosystems will respond to climate change. Here, for the first time, a large dataset collected through the FLUXNET network is used to estimate how the gross primary production (GPP) of different Mediterranean ecosystems was affected by air temperature and precipitation between the years 1996 and 2013. We showed that annual precipitation was not a significant driver of annual GPP. Our results also indicated that seasonal variations of air temperature significantly affected seasonal variations of GPP but without major impact on inter annual variations. Inter-annual variations of GPP seemed largely controlled by the precipitation during early spring (March–April), making this period crucial for the future of Mediterranean ecosystems. Finally, we also observed that the sensitivity of GPP in Mediterranean ecosystems to climate drivers is not ecosystem type dependent.