The findings could inform planetary health assessments, enhance ecosystem management, and guide climate change projections and mitigation strategies.
The findings could inform planetary health assessments, enhance ecosystem management, and guide climate change projections and mitigation strategies.
Terrestrial plants drove an increase in global photosynthesis between 2003 and 2021, a trend partially offset by a weak decline in photosynthesis — the process of using sunlight to make food — among marine algae, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change on Aug. 1. The findings could inform planetary health assessments, enhance ecosystem management, and guide climate change projections and mitigation strategies.
Photosynthetic organisms — also known as primary producers — form the base of the food chain, making most life on Earth possible. Using energy from the sun, primary producers fix, or convert, carbon from the air into organic, or carbon-based, matter. But primary producers also release carbon through a process called autotrophic respiration, which is somewhat akin to breathing. The rate of carbon gain after accounting for loss through respiration is called net primary production.
“Net primary production measures the amount of energy photosynthetic organisms capture and make available to support nearly all other life in an ecosystem,” said first author Yulong Zhang, a research scientist in the lab of Wenhong Li at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “As the foundation of food webs, net primary production determines ecosystem health, provides food and fibers for humans, mitigates anthropogenic carbon emissions and helps to stabilize Earth’s climate.”
Read More: Duke University
Image: This image illustrates the annual trend in global net primary production (NPP) — or net carbon gain by photosynthetic organisms on Earth — from 2003 to 2021. Image courtesy of Yulong Zhang, et al, 2025
