By Sid Perkins
Plants take carbon dioxide out of Earth’s atmosphere and use its carbon to promote their growth. However, if human activities continue to increase atmospheric concentrations of the planet-warming gas, vegetation won’t sequester large amounts of carbon dioxide in the long term, two new analyses suggest. That’s because plants will quickly run out of other nutrients.
In the short term, plants store carbon in their tissues. Eventually, some of that carbon makes its way into the soil through the roots or via fallen leaves and stems. Those phenomena had raised the possibility that plants would decrease the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.