About

César Terrer is a TianFu Group Career Development Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, specializing in climate and environment, ecology, and evolution. His research investigates grand challenges in Earth system science and climate-change research, with a focus on plant-soil interactions. His group employs a holistic view of Earth’s dynamics at a global scale, synthesizing field observations and satellite data to understand the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to store carbon in the context of climate change, including factors such as rising CO2 levels, warming, nitrogen deposition, and water regime changes. His work aims to improve ecological understanding of the processes modulating carbon storage and to develop data-driven strategies to maximize carbon uptake in terrestrial ecosystems to slow global warming. Terrer holds a Ph.D. from Imperial College London in Climate Change Ecosystem Ecology, a master's degree in Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation from the University of Murcia, and a bachelor's in Environmental Science from the same university. His professional experience includes postdoctoral positions at Stanford University and Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, as well as a Lawrence Fellowship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He has been recognized with awards such as the NSF CAREER Award in 2024.

Research topics

• Geography
• Biology
• Ecology
• Environmental science
• Geology
• Soil science
• Atmospheric sciences
• Agronomy
• Earth science
• Library science
• Meteorology
• Archaeology
• Chemistry

Selected publications

• Diagnosing linearity along the carbon cascade in terrestrial biosphere models

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-09-04

  preprintOpen access

  Abstract Elevated carbon dioxide (eCO 2 ) fertilises photosynthesis, driving an increase in terrestrial gross primary production (GPP). However, it is unclear how effectively increased GPP propagates along the “carbon (C) cascade” to increase net primary production (NPP) and vegetation C stocks ( C veg ) in different plant compartments. Vegetation models simulate divergent C cycle projections and have been criticised for being overly photosynthesis-driven (source-driven), neglecting processes that lead to non-linear behaviour in response to the GPP increase, which may attenuate (or amplify) changes in NPP and vegetation C stocks. Here, we introduce an analytical framework to diagnose linearity ( L ) of the land C cycle as the ratio of relative changes in linked fluxes and pools and apply it to outputs from 16 models of the TRENDY v11 ensemble. We found widely varying patterns in L across models and for the different links. Six models showed a clear dominance of larger relative changes in NPP than in GPP in global simulations ( L NPP:GPP >1 for >60% of gridcells), indicating increased carbon use efficiency under eCO 2 . Only three models had L NPP:GPP < 1 for >60% of gridcells. Four models showed a clear dominance of larger relative changes in steady-state C veg than in NPP, while five models showed an opposite pattern - in both cases with a large spread of L Cveg*:NPP across gridcells within models. Three models showed a larger relative increase in root C than in C veg , while two models showed a clear dominance of the opposite pattern. Widely differing distributions of L across models and links reveal a strong influence of alternative process representations (nonlinear behaviour) in individual models. However, for all links, L deviations from 1 were roughly balanced across the model ensemble, leading to an overall linear behaviour of terrestrial C cycle representations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A large global soil carbon sink informed by repeated soil samplings

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-04-29 · 6 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Partitioning the terrestrial carbon sink between vegetation and soil is crucial for predicting future climate change, but the role of soils remains poorly quantified. Here, we compiled 3,099 soil organic carbon time series spanning five decades. We found a global soil organic carbon sink of 1.83 ± 0.9 (mean ± SE) petagrams per year from 1992 to 2020, driven by extratropical young forests, boreal old forests, and grasslands, while trends in tropical ecosystems remain uncertain. Our findings suggest the net land sink resides almost exclusively belowground as soil carbon, emphasizing the global opportunity of soil conservation and restoration for climate mitigation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Addressing critiques refines global estimates of reforestation potential for climate change mitigation

  Nature Communications · 2025-06-11 · 24 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Reforestation is a prominent climate change mitigation strategy, but available global maps of reforestation potential are widely criticized and highly variable, which limits their ability to provide robust estimates of both the locations and total area of opportunity. Here we develop global maps that address common critiques, build on a review of 89 reforestation maps created at multiple scales, and present eight reforestation scenarios with varying objectives, including providing ecosystem services, minimizing social conflicts, and delivering government policies. Across scenarios, we find up to 195 Mha (million hectares) are available (2225 TgCO 2 e (teragrams of carbon dioxide equivalent) per year total net mitigation potential), which is 71–92% smaller than previous estimates because of conservative modeling choices, incorporation of safeguards, and use of recent, high-resolution datasets. This area drops as low as 6 Mha (53 TgCO 2 e per year total net mitigation potential) if only statutorily protected areas are targeted. Few locations simultaneously achieve multiple objectives, suggesting that a mix of lands and restoration motivations will be needed to capitalize on the many potential benefits of reforestation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Pathways towards climate and health co-benefits in global ruminant sector

  Research Square · 2025-06-27

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Temperature thresholds induce abrupt shifts in biodiversity and ecosystem services in montane ecosystems worldwide

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2025-04-14 · 18 citations

  articleOpen access

  Montane ecosystems are crucial for maintaining global biodiversity and function that sustain life on our planet. Yet, these ecosystems are highly vulnerable to changing temperatures and may undergo critical transitions under ongoing climate change. What we do not know is to what extent montane biodiversity and ecosystem services will respond to local temperature variations in a gradual versus abrupt manner across global environments. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a global synthesis, including 4,462 observations from 290 elevation gradients, to investigate how biodiversity (spanning animals and plants) and ecosystem services (including plant production, soil carbon, and fertility) respond to local temperature variations along elevation gradients. We found that nearly one-third of these gradients exhibited abrupt shifts in multiple biodiversity and ecosystem services in response to local variations in temperature along elevation gradients. More specifically, we showed that once a particular local temperature level (~10 °C for mean annual temperature) was reached, even small increases in temperature resulted in dramatic variations in biodiversity and ecosystem services. We further showed that those abrupt shifts in response to local temperature increases were commonly positive for plant and animal diversity, as well as plant production, while soil carbon and fertility more commonly exhibit negative abrupt trends. Our work, based on the most comprehensive empirical evidence available so far, reveals the pervasive abrupt responses of biodiversity and ecosystem services to local temperature variations in montane ecosystems worldwide, highlighting the highly sensitive nature of montane ecosystems in the context of climate change.

  PublisherDOI

• Warming Amplifies Responses of Soil Organic Carbon to Multiple Global Change Drivers

  Global Change Biology · 2025-11-01 · 1 citations

  article

  ABSTRACT Soil organic carbon (SOC) is the largest terrestrial C reservoir on Earth, which plays a critical role in climate regulation. While global warming is a defining feature of anthropogenic climate change, its interactive effects with other global change drivers on the content of SOC remain unclear. For this study we conducted a global meta‐analysis of 2349 observations from 363 studies, which revealed that warming alone reduced SOC by 7.2% while synergistically amplifying responses to other drivers. It enhanced the effects of elevated CO 2 by 240% and those of nitrogen addition by 350%, while exacerbating drought‐induced losses by 340%. Noticeably, while warming revealed synergistic interactions with other drivers, the interactions between elevated CO 2 , nitrogen addition, and drought were additive. The responses of SOC consistently strengthened with treatment intensity and duration across diverse ranges of ecosystems, climates, and soil textures. These findings establish warming as a catalytic force that reshapes SOC dynamics under ongoing global change, with profound implications for terrestrial C‐climate feedbacks.

  PublisherDOI

• Plant nutrient acquisition under elevated CO2 and implications for the land carbon sink

  Nature Climate Change · 2025-08-18 · 8 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Temporal and Phenological Modulation of the Impact of Increasing Drought Conditions on Vegetation Growth in a Humid Big River Basin: Insights From Global Comparisons

  Earth s Future · 2025-03-01 · 12 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract As the upward trend in extreme drought continues with climate change, terrestrial vegetation growth is assumed to become largely reduced. We investigated anomalies of remote sensing vegetation indexes under droughts across the upper Yangtze River (UYR) basin, characterized as humid but having experienced frequent seasonal droughts from 2000. Then we compared global big river basins by focusing on the Nile and Congo basins, which have similar characteristics to the UYR. The vegetation across the UYR was affected by water stress in recent years but shows reduced sensitivity to drought. The compound effect of drought timing and phenology largely drives the response. Results show that late‐season droughts generally have a greater impact on vegetation growth compared to early season droughts, with alpine grasslands showing particularly pronounced responses due to their ecological features such as shallow root depth and aggressive hydrological behavior. The Nile basin, similar to the UYR basin, exhibits pronounced late‐season vegetation vulnerability, highlighting shared patterns of drought impact across heterogeneous landscapes. In contrast, the tropical rainforests in the Congo basin demonstrate greater resilience, supported by complex root systems, dense canopies, and low cloud cover that reduces evaporation. This study underscores the importance of considering regional ecological characteristics, drought timing, and phenological stages in assessing vegetation responses to drought. These insights are critical for predicting and managing ecosystem resilience under changing climatic conditions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Nitrogen deposition and climate drive plant nitrogen uptake while soil factors drive nitrogen use efficiency in terrestrial ecosystems

  2025-01-13 · 3 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract. The role of plants in sequestering carbon is a critical component in mitigating climate change. A key aspect of this role involves plant nitrogen (N) uptake (Nup) and N use efficiency (NUE), as these factors directly influence the capacity of plants to store carbon. However, the contribution of N deposition and soil factors (biotic and abiotic) in addition to climate to plant N cycle, remains inadequately understood, introducing significant uncertainties into climate change projections. Here, we used ground-based observations across 159 locations to calculate Nup and NUE and identify their main drivers in natural ecosystems. We found that global plant Nup is primarily driven by N deposition, air temperature and precipitation, with Nup increasing in warmer and wetter areas. In contrast, NUE is driven by soil biotic and abiotic factors, with little direct control by climatic factors. Specifically, NUE decreased with the intensity of the colonization by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and increased with soil pH and soil microbial stocks. Nup and NUE presented opposite latitudinal distributions, with Nup higher on tropical latitudes and NUE higher towards the poles. Total soil N stocks were not found to be a driver of Nup or NUE. We also compared our results with TRENDY models and found that models may overestimate Nup by ~ 100 Tg N yr-1 in the tropics and triple the standard deviation on boreal latitudes. Our findings emphasize the effect of N deposition and soil microbes that, in addition to climate and soil pH, are crucial for accurately predicting ecosystems’ capacity to sequester carbon and mitigate climate change.

  PublisherDOI

• Global patterns of nutrient limitation in soil microorganisms

  2025-03-14 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  The nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) limitations in soil microorganisms have profound implications for key soil functions such as organic matter decomposition and soil carbon (C) sequestration. However, the extent and magnitude of microbial N and P limitation in soils worldwide remain largely unknown compared to N and P limitation in plants. Moreover, the spatial variability of microbial N and P limitation may lead to disproportionate responses of microbially driven soil processes and functions to global change factors along environmental gradients. Thus, better understanding of global patterns and drivers of microbial N and P limitation is urgently needed for predicting changes in soil functions and their consequences for terrestrial ecosystem functioning. Herein, we evaluated global patterns of microbial N and P limitation by combining profiles of extracellular enzymes (i.e. ecoenzymes; 5,259 observations) with multiple sets of observational and experimental data from natural (i.e. outside of agricultural and urban areas) terrestrial ecosystems. Our analyses reveal widespread indications of microbial P and N limitation (65 and 40% of observations, respectively) in soils worldwide, with unexpectedly frequent N and P co-limitation in the tropics. This co-limitation could be attributable to elevated microbial N demand for the synthesis of P-acquiring enzymes under P limitation, and thus likely as a secondary N limitation resulting from the inherent P deficiency in tropical soils. Upscaling prediction (0.1 × 0.1° spatial resolution) further indicated certain regions such as the Amazon Basin, Tibetan Plateau, and Siberian regions, which harbor substantial soil organic C, showed signs of strong N and P limitation in soil microorganisms, suggesting a high sensitivity of soil C cycling in these regions to nutrient perturbations. As the first global assessment of spatial variation in microbial N and P limitation, these findings provide clues to explain the long-standing “Tropical N Paradox” (i.e. the apparent up-regulation of ecosystem N cycling processes, such as biological N fixation, despite primary P limitation and high soil N levels in tropical ecosystems) and could be useful for understanding and predicting soil biogeochemical cycles in a changing world. [This study is a work that will be published in PNAS (revised stage)].

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Bruce A. Hungate

  Northern Arizona University

  67 shared

• Xuhui Zhou

  53 shared

• Guiyao Zhou

  Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología de Sevilla

  53 shared

• Natasja van Gestel

  Texas Tech University

  52 shared

• Philippe Ciais

  Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement

  28 shared

• Benjamin D. Stocker

  University of Bern

  24 shared

• Kees Jan van Groenigen

  23 shared

• Robert B. Jackson

  Stanford University

  21 shared

Labs

• César Terrer LabPI

Awards & honors

• NSF CAREER Award, 2024