The FLUXNET2015 dataset provides ecosystem-scale data on CO₂, water, and energy exchange between the biosphere and the atmosphere, and other meteorological and biological measurements, from 212 sites around the globe (over 1500 site-years, up to and including year 2014). These sites, independently managed and operated, voluntarily contributed their data to create global datasets. Data were quality controlled and processed using uniform methods, to improve consistency and intercomparability across sites. The dataset is already being used in a number of applications, including ecophysiology studies, remote sensing studies, and development of ecosystem and Earth system models. FLUXNET2015 includes derived-data products, such as gap-filled time series, ecosystem respiration and photosynthetic uptake estimates, estimation of uncertainties, and metadata about the measurements, presented for the first time in this paper. In addition, 206 of these sites are for the first time distributed under a Creative Commons (CC-BY 4.0) license. This paper details this enhanced dataset and the processing methods, now made available as open-source codes, making the dataset more accessible, transparent, and reproducible.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-021-00851-9.

Summary: A long‐standing ambition in ecosystem science has been to understand the relationship between ecosystem community composition, structure and function. Differential water use and hydraulic redistribution have been proposed as one mechanism that might allow for the coexistence of overstory woody plants and understory grasses. Here, we investigated how patterns of hydraulic redistribution influence overstory and understory ecophysiological function and how patterns vary across timescales of an individual precipitation event to an entire growing season. To this end, we linked measures of sap flux within lateral and tap roots, leaf‐level photosynthesis, ecosystem‐level carbon exchange and soil carbon dioxide efflux with local meteorology data. The hydraulic redistribution regime was characterized predominantly by hydraulic descent relative to hydraulic lift. We found only a competitive interaction between the overstory and understory, regardless of temporal time scale. Overstory trees used nearly all water lifted by the taproot to meet their own transpirational needs. Our work suggests that alleviating water stress is not the reason we find grasses growing in the understory of woody plants; rather, other stresses, such as excessive light and temperature, are being ameliorated. As such, both the two‐layer model and stress gradient hypothesis need to be refined to account for this coexistence in drylands.

This paper reviews the currently available optical sensors, their limitations and opportunities for deployment at Eddy Covariance (EC) sites in Europe. This review is based on the results obtained from an online survey designed and disseminated by the Co-cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action ESO903—“Spectral Sampling Tools for Vegetation Biophysical Parameters and Flux Measurements in Europe” that provided a complete view on spectral sampling activities carried out within the different research teams in European countries. The results have highlighted that a wide variety of optical sensors are in use at flux sites across Europe, and responses further demonstrated that users were not always fully aware of the key issues underpinning repeatability and the reproducibility of their spectral measurements. The key findings of this survey point towards the need for greater awareness of the need for standardisation and development of a common protocol of optical sampling at the European EC sites.

Soil CO₂ efflux (F_soil) is commonly considered equal to soil CO₂ production (R_soil), and both terms are used interchangeably. However, a non-negligible fraction of R_soil can be consumed in the subsurface due to a host of disparate, yet simultaneous processes. The ratio between CO₂ efflux/O₂ influx, known as the apparent respiratory quotient (ARQ), enables new insights into CO₂ losses from R_soil not previously captured by F_soil. We present the first study using continuous ARQ estimates to evaluate annual CO₂ losses of carbon produced from R_soil. We found that up to 1/3 of R_soil was emitted directly to the atmosphere, whereas 2/3 of R_soil was removed by subsurface processes. These subsurface losses are attributable to dissolution in water, biological activities and chemical reactions. Having better estimates of R_soil is key to understanding the true influence of ecosystem production on R_soil, as well as the role of soil CO₂ production in other connected processes within the critical zone.