Curtis 9727159 Integrative reviews of published research have become increasingly important in uncovering general classes of plant and ecosystem response to rising atmospheric CO2 and in estimating the size of those responses. Meta-analysis is an objective and statistically rigorous approach to integrating primary research results where the goal is to estimate the overall magnitude of an experimental treatment across many independent studies. It is important from a scientific as well as a policy perspective that results from elevated CO2 research be integrated using these tools. I have three primary objectives: 1. The establishment of a comprehensive, digital data base of all vegetation CO2 response results published to date. 2. Integration and synthesis of these results using meta-analytic methods. 3. Distribution of this database via a server at the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The combined results of my meta-analytic work and the improved access of other researchers to this large database will lead to substantial improvement in our understanding of the likely magnitude of vegetation carbon gain in a future, higher CO2 world, and of the biotic and abiotic interactions affecting that carbon gain. This will be of importance to basic researchers and modelers working from the whole plant to the ecosystem level.
