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Phosphorus constrains global photosynthesis more than nitrogen does

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 9, pages 2025–2035 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Global vegetation growth is thought to be limited by nitrogen (N) more than by other nutrients. Here we document a stronger phosphorus (P) limitation on global photosynthesis compared with N over the last four decades. On the basis of more than 80,000 field observations of foliar nutrients and a machine learning method, we generated a long-term global dataset of foliar N and P concentrations for the period 1980–2017. We show a larger declining rate of foliar P concentration (−0.80 ± 0.008% yr−1) than of N concentration (−0.31 ± 0.002% yr−1). This decline has led to an increase in terrestrial areas limited by foliar P and a widespread constraint on vegetation photosynthesis, more than 1.5 times stronger than the constraint by foliar N. The increasing trend in global photosynthesis over the past 4 decades has been reduced by approximately 17.2% and 6.7% as a result of the decline in foliar P and N, respectively. This stronger P limitation on global photosynthesis implies a weakening of terrestrial carbon sinks due to an emerging P constraint and calls for stricter strategies for reducing anthropogenic emissions to mitigate climatic warming.

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Fig. 1: Comparison of the global trends in foliar N and P concentrations.
Fig. 2: Global trends in the foliar N/P ratio.
Fig. 3: Global temporal variation in potential N and P limitation areas.
Fig. 4: Global spatial distributions of the N and P constraints on GPP for 1982 and 2017 based on AVHRR data.
Fig. 5: Temporal variations of the N and P constraints on GPP.
Fig. 6: Impacts of the trends of foliar N and P concentrations on the global GPP trends during 1982–2017.

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Data availability

The foliar N and P concentrations from TRY database are available at https://www.try-db.org; the foliar N and P concentrations from the three published articles are available from the links in refs. 26,48,49; the field continuous foliar N and P measurements in Europe are available at https://www.openagrar.de/receive/openagrar_mods_00063169; the compilation data of foliar N and P measurements at Southern China are available from the link in ref. 23; the compilation data of foliar N and δ15N measurements in the USA are available from the links in refs. 65,66; the climatic data from the TerraClimate product are available at https://www.climatologylab.org/; the FLUXNET 2015 data are available at https://fluxnet.org/data/fluxnet2015-dataset/; the global satellite-based GPP data are available via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12981977.v2 (ref. 75); the GLASS FAPAR data are available at http://www.glass.umd.edu/; and the global log-transformed NRE/PRE map is available via figshare at https://figshare.com/s/588b39708c778e694b49 (ref. 76).

Code availability

The codes used in this study are available via figshare at https://figshare.com/s/222637a520f7ae19e5af (ref. 77).

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Acknowledgements

S.W. was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFF0803100), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32322064 and 32471675), the Jiangsu Provincial Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars (BK20220083) and the Nanjing U35 Project. J.P. and J.S. were supported by the Spanish government grants PID2020115770RB-I, PID2022-140808NB-I00 and TED2021-132627 B–I00 funded by MCIN, AEI/10.13039/501100011033 European Union Next Generation EU/PRTR. P.C. was supported by the CALIPSO (Carbon Losses in Plants, Soils and Oceans) project, funded by the generosity of Eric and Wendy Schmidt on recommendations of the Schmidt Futures programme. D.S.E. was supported by the Australian Research Council grant DP210100115. We extend our sincere thanks to all providers of data used in this study for their continuous efforts and for sharing their data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Modern Crop Production, Key Laboratory of Crop Physiology and Ecology in Southern China, College of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

    Songhan Wang, Yu Jiang & Yanfeng Ding

  2. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, CEA CNRS UVSQ, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Philippe Ciais

  3. Institute for Global Change Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Peter B. Reich

  4. Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA

    Peter B. Reich

  5. Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia

    Peter B. Reich & David S. Ellsworth

  6. European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy

    Alessandro Cescatti

  7. Department of Biology, Research Group PLECO (Plants and Ecosystems), University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Belgium

    Ivan A. Janssens

  8. CSIC Global Ecology Unit, CREAF-CSIC-UAB, Barcelona, Spain

    Jordi Sardans & Josep Peñuelas

  9. CREAF, Cerdanyola del Vallès 08193, Barcelona, Spain

    Jordi Sardans & Josep Peñuelas

  10. School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Yiqi Luo

  11. Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA

    Nicholas G. Smith

  12. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Enzai Du

  13. State Key Laboratory of Efficient Production of Forest Resources, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China

    Di Tian

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Contributions

S.W. designed the research and performed the analysis. S.W., A.C. and J.P. discussed the design, methods and results and drafted the paper. P.C., P.B.R., D.S.E. and J.S. contributed to the interpretation of the results and to the writing. I.A.J., Y.L., N.G.S., E.D., D.T., Y.J. and Y.D. contributed to the writing.

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Correspondence to Songhan Wang or Yanfeng Ding.

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Wang, S., Ciais, P., Reich, P.B. et al. Phosphorus constrains global photosynthesis more than nitrogen does. Nat Ecol Evol 9, 2025–2035 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02842-0

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