Weiwei Zhan

New PhD position in Plant Ecophysiology🌳 Study how atmospheric & soil drought shape tree carbon & water relations at the VPDrought experiment in Switzerland. Start Jan 2026. Apply here: m.refline.ch/273855/1759/... @wslresearch.bsky.social

Observed declines in leaf nitrogen explained by photosynthetic acclimation to CO2 | PNAS Widespread evidence of decreasing leaf nutrients has raised concerns about ecosystem productivity under global change. Interpreting trends in leaf ...

📢Just out! A new paper by the team in @pnas.org : Observed declines in leaf nitrogen explained by photosynthetic acclimation to CO2!

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Maoya Bassiouni, @nickgregsmith.bsky.social @trevorkeenan.bsky.social et al.

What a wonderful surprise to see our work reflected in a commentary that so clearly "gets it". Thank you so much @juergenknauer.bsky.social !

Reduced water loss rather than increased photosynthesis controls CO2-enhanced water-use efficiency - Nature Ecology & Evolution A machine learning approach using long-term observations of eddy covariance finds that the increase in plant intrinsic water-use efficiency under higher CO2 levels, across diverse ecosystems, is drive...

A machine learning approach using long-term observations of eddy covariance finds that the increase in plant intrinsic water-use efficiency under higher CO2 is driven primarily by reduction in canopy conductance, rather than stimulation of gross primary productivity
www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪

Thanks so much, Jürgen! It means a lot to see our work reflected in your insightful commentary.

What a pleasure to write a News & Views piece on this intriguing article that found surprising insights into WUE trends --> www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Anthropogenic intensification of short-duration rainfall extremes - Nature Reviews Earth & Environment Short-duration rainfall extremes are determined by complex processes that are affected by the warming climate. This Review assesses the evidence for the intensification of short-duration rainfall extr...

For a recent review see www.nature.com/articles/s43...
"Both short-duration and long-duration (>1 day) rainfall extremes are intensifying with warming at a rate consistent with the increase in atmospheric moisture" (~7% per degree C), but some local convective rainfall events increase even more. 5/5

New Article: "When and where soil dryness matters to ecosystem photosynthesis" rdcu.be/evfGV

A causality-guided explainable AI framework shows soil moisture dominates vapour pressure deficit in shaping global photosynthesis during water-limited conditions.

Delighted to share our new paper "Reduced water loss rather than increased photosynthesis controls CO2-enhanced water-use efficiency:
www.nature.com/articles/s41... , which demonstrates the strongly detectable impact of CO2 fertilization on canopy and stomata conductance,

Also deeply grateful to those acknowledged in the paper for insightful feedback and support: @jianingfang.bsky.social @wu-sun.bsky.social @dukesjeff.bsky.social @annamichalak.bsky.social and others not on Bluesky!

Huge thanks to my amazing co-authors: @jiangong-liu.bsky.social @chunhuizhan.bsky.social @abcube.bsky.social @pierregentine.bsky.social , and to others not on Bluesky!

Water-use efficiency driven by water savings - Nature Ecology & Evolution Analysis of land–atmosphere water and CO2 fluxes suggests that reduced water use by vegetation, rather than increased carbon uptake, is the driving factor behind the well-documented increase in vegeta...

Also excited to see our work accompanied by a View & Commentary by Dr. Jürgen Knauer. We sincerely appreciate the thoughtful perspective! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Reduced water loss rather than increased photosynthesis controls CO2-enhanced water-use efficiency - Nature Ecology & Evolution A machine learning approach using long-term observations of eddy covariance finds that the increase in plant intrinsic water-use efficiency under higher CO2 levels, across diverse ecosystems, is drive...

Interested in how plant intrinsic water-use efficiency (iWUE) responds to rising CO2? Our new paper shows that CO2-enhanced iWUE is mainly driven by reduced canopy conductance, while stimulation of ecosystem photosynthesis is less detectable given current data length. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This species-specific study and another latest out global analyses www.nature.com/articles/s41... converge to the same conclusion: enhanced tree/forest growth by the global warming cannot offset the negative impacts causes by disturbances, such as droughts.

This was the first chapter of my PhD but we spent a long long time on reviewing and revising (which indeed greatly improved the quality). This is where we need nice supervisors and coauthors who keep encouraging me regardless of peer criticism and rejection! Also C.Bio. has very good author service!

When and where soil dryness matters to ecosystem photosynthesis - Nature Plants Using a causality-guided explainable AI framework, Liu et al. show soil moisture dominates vapour pressure deficit in shaping global photosynthesis during water-limited conditions.

Our new paper is out on Nature Plants! We found that soil moisture contributes more to ecosystem photosynthesis than VPD for the water-limited periods and water-limited locations, using causality-guided explainable AI. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

When and where soil dryness matters to ecosystem photosynthesis - Nature Plants Using a causality-guided explainable AI framework, Liu et al. show soil moisture dominates vapour pressure deficit in shaping global photosynthesis during water-limited conditions.

Excited to share our new paper "When and where soil dryness matters to ecosystem photosynthesis" www.nature.com/articles/s41..., which resolves a long-standing debate as to whether soil moisture or atmospheric dryness dominates water stress response.

E3SM‐GCAM: A Synchronously Coupled Human Component in the E3SM Earth System Model Enables Novel Human‐Earth Feedback Research We have incorporated a novel, advanceable human component in an Earth system model to simulate human-Earth feedbacks Including terrestrial productivity feedbacks from the Earth to the human syste...

Traditionally ESMs didn't actively model human decision-making, but just published today: "E3SM-GCAM: A Synchronously Coupled Human Component in the E3SM Earth System Model Enables Novel Human-Earth Feedback Research" by Alan Di Vittorio et al.! agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

Global variation in vegetation carbon use efficiency inferred from eddy covariance observations - Nature Ecology & Evolution The efficiency with which plants use carbon assimilated through photosynthesis has a key role in determining natureʼs capacity to offset carbon dioxide emissions. This study leverages global eddy cova...

🌍New paper out today!!! Global variation in vegetation carbon use efficiency inferred from eddy covariance observations @xiangzluo.bsky.social @natureportfolio.nature.com 🔗👇
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Northern ecosystem productivity reduced by Rossby-wave-driven hot–dry conditions - Nature Geoscience Satellite observations suggest that prolonged hot–dry conditions induced by Rossby waves in the jet stream reduce ecosystem productivity, providing insights into the potential impacts of a future warm...

Excited to share our new Nature Geoscience paper on how persistent Rossby waves patterns are triggering simultaneous hot-dry extremes across western Europe, Asia, and the U.S., severely reducing vegetation productivity and carbon uptake.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Plant functional traits affect biomass responses to global change: A meta‐analysis The positive effects of elevated nutrient on belowground biomass were more pronounced for communities dominated by “fast” species. In communities dominated by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi-associated ...

How do dominant plants' functional traits affect biomass responses to global change? New paper by Mingyan Hu et al uses the large Manipulation Experiments Synthesis Initiative (MESI) database to find out.
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Permafrost, Peatland, and Cropland Regions Are Key to Reconciling North American Carbon Sink Estimates Additional sink inferred by inversions in just 16% of North America accounts for the discrepancy between top-down and bottom-up estimates Statistically significant differences between top-down an...

Now online: "Permafrost, Peatland, and Cropland Regions Are Key to Reconciling North American Carbon Sink Estimates" by Kelsey Foster et al., including @avnimalh0tra.bsky.social w/ Stanford, PNNL, NAU, and NRC colleagues agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

This is a collaborative work with support from @xiyang.bsky.social @youngryel.bsky.social @bendechant.bsky.social @pierregentine.bsky.social !

Wanna learn how to partition CO2 fluxes using ML and SIF? 🌱🤖 Come join me on April 8 - it's a talk ➕ a hands-on coding session!

Temporal constraints on leaf-level trait plasticity for next-generation land surface models AbstractBackground and aims. Dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) are essential for quantifying the role of terrestrial ecosystems in the Earth’s clima

New pub out in @annbot.bsky.social led by Astrid Ode titled "Temporal constraints on leaf-level trait plasticity for next-generation land surface models"

We critically examine timescales of trait-environment responses

Have a look!

@lemontree-uofr.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/aob/advance-...

The FLUXNET Early Career Network (FLUXNET-ECN) is excited to announce “Bridging the Gap: Flux Data Meets Land Surface Models”, a three-day in-person workshop August 6-8th, 2025 focused on integrating flux data for validating and parameterizing land surface models.

eartharxiv.org/repository/v...

Can we develop a global #deeplearning #model for daily Soil CO2 efflux?

Results show
- #LSTM models can use existing data to generate synthetic data for temperate mesic regions
- challenges of transferring relationships learned from data-rich to data-poor sites

Figure 3 from the paper of Gibbs et al (2025) showing three maps respectively representing the amounts of greenhouse gas emmisions, removal, and net flux. Caption from the paper: Forest-related GHG fluxes (annual average, 2001–2023). (a) Gross GHG emissions. (b) Gross CO2 removals. (c) Net GHG flux. Fluxes are aggregated to 0.04×0.04° (approximately 4×4 km) cells for display purposes. Publisher's remark: please note that the above figure contains disputed territories.

🌲🌳🌐 New study reminds us that forests act globally as a #carbon sink

Between 2001 and 2023, the world's #forests have absorbed 5.5 gigatonnes more #CO2 than they have emitted on average each year.

👉 Gibbs et al. dx.doi.org/10.5194/essd... 🧪

A global meta-analysis of soil respiration in response to elevated CO2 Soil respiration (Rs) is a crucial component of the terrestrial ecosystem carbon (C) cycle, which significantly regulates atmospheric CO2 concentratio…

A global meta-analysis of soil respiration in response to elevated CO2 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Did the winter 2024-25 La Niña precipitation pattern perform as predicted? To find out, we compared observed conditions to two ENSO-monitoring indices. See how we did in our newest ENSO blog post! www.climate.gov/news-feature...