Nonlinear responses of land ecosystems to variation in precipitation.

As global change induces more and more extreme climate events (Field et al., 2012), temporal variability in precipitation is likely becoming larger than ever. How land ecosystems respond to the stronger temporal variability in precipitation is a new frontier research area for ecologists (Reichstein et al., 2013; Niu et al., 2014). In this issue of New Phytologist Knapp et al. (pp. 41–47) frame a new conceptual model to understand responses of abovegroundnet primary production (ANPP) to stronger temporal variability in precipitation.