A recent paper published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society PDF developed theory of regional and temporal controls of aboveground net primary production and tested hypotheses using existing long-term data. Legacies revealed by the association of current- versus previous-year conditions through the temporal series occur across all ecosystem types from deserts to mesic grasslands. Therefore, previous-year precipitation and ANPP control a significant fraction of current-year production; and legacies explain the difference between spatial and temporal models. The relative importance of current-versus previous-year precipitation changes along a gradient of mean annual precipitation with the importance of current-year PPT decreasing, whereas the importance of previous-year PPT remains constant as mean annual precipitation increases.
