This study presents a conceptual framework of buffering through storage and recycling of elements in terrestrial ecosystems and reviews the current knowledge about storage and recycling of elements in plants and ecosystems. Terrestrial ecosystems, defined here as plant-soil systems, buffer inputs from the atmosphere and bedrock through storage and recycling of elements, i.e., they dampen and delay their responses to inputs. Our framework challenges conventional paradigms of ecosystem resistance derived from plant community dynamics, and instead shows that element pools and fluxes have an overriding effect on the sensitivity of ecosystems to environmental change. While storage pools allow ecosystems to buffer variability in inputs over short to intermediate periods, recycling of elements enables ecosystems to buffer inputs over longer periods. The conceptual framework presented here improves our ability to predict the responses of ecosystems to environmental change. This is urgently needed to define thresholds which must not be exceeded to guarantee ecosystem functioning. This study provides a framework for future research to explore the extent to which ecosystems buffer variability in inputs.

本研究提出了通过陆地生态系统中元素的储存和循环进行缓冲的概念框架，并回顾了目前关于植物和生态系统中元素储存和循环的知识。陆地生态系统，这里定义为植物-土壤系统，通过元素的储存和循环利用缓冲来自大气和基岩的输入，即它们抑制和延迟它们对输入的反应。我们的框架挑战了源自植物群落动态的传统生态系统抵抗范式，而是表明元素库和通量对生态系统对环境变化的敏感性具有压倒一切的影响。虽然蓄水池允许生态系统在短期到中期缓冲输入的变化，但元素的回收使生态系统能够在更长的时间内缓冲输入。这里提出的概念框架提高了我们预测生态系统对环境变化的反应的能力。这迫切需要定义不得超过以保证生态系统功能的阈值。这项研究为未来的研究提供了一个框架，以探索生态系统在多大程度上缓冲输入的变化。