Tuesday, 21 May 2002: 9:45 AM
Annual CO2 fluxes above a sagebrush-steppe ecosystem in eastern Idaho
Sagebrush-steppe ecosystems cover expansive areas in western North America and likely make important contributions to the global carbon cycle. However, few studies have measured CO2 fluxes in these important ecosystems. The objective of our study was to determine CO2 fluxes in a representative sagebrush-steppe ecosystem at the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station near Dubois, Idaho. The Bowen ratio/energy balance technique was used to continuously measure net CO2 fluxes above the ungrazed, sagebrush-steppe site during the growing seasons of 1996-2001. Daily net CO2 uptake was highest during June and, depending on the year, total fluxes for the growing season ranged from +284 to +1,103 g CO2 m-2. Based on flux measurements obtained during the late fall, winter, and early spring of 2000-01, we used a mean daily flux of -1.37 g CO2 m-2 d-1 during the cold period to estimate annual CO2 fluxes. These annual values suggest that sagebrush-steppe ecosystems are sinks for CO2 during some years and sources during other years, depending on the environmental conditions for the particular year.
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