CO2 Fertilization: The Great Uncertainty in Future Vegetation Development

Abstract

Even the most conservative estimates of the future development of the global CO2 level forsee a doubling of this essential plant "food" in the next century. The investigation of plant responses to these enhanced supplies of CO2 is perhaps one of the greatest challenges in ecology. In the words of B.R. Strain, "few endeavors could be more important than the study of the ecological and evolutionary effects of another century of complex, but unidirectional, environmental changes affecting the entire globe" Strain 1987). The steady increase of atmospheric CO2 is perhaps the most significant of these global changes.