Empirical evidence for resilience of tropical forest photosynthesis in a warmer world

Smith, Margaret; Taylor, Tyeen; Haren, Joost van; Rosolem, Rafael; Restrepo‐Coupe, Natalia; Adams, J. Rodger; Wu, Jin; Oliveira, Raimundo Cosme de; Silva, Rodrigo da; Araújo, Alessandro; Camargo, Plínio Barbosa de; Huxman, Travis E.; Saleska, S. R.

doi:10.1038/s41477-020-00780-2

Cited by 90 publications

(96 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…This suggests that P opt and T opt have the potential to increase at higher leaf temperatures if VPD is alleviated (Varhammar et al, 2015), which could alter the relationships between carbon assimilation and PSII heat tolerances that we observed. This may offer some thermal resilience at higher concentrations of CO 2 (Smith et al, 2020), but tropical plants may still be in danger of approaching their biochemical limits of carbon assimilation under very high humidity that reduces VPD and latent heat loss (Perez & Feeley, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Photosystem II heat tolerances characterize thermal generalists and the upper limit of carbon assimilation

Perez

Socha

Tserej

et al. 2021

Plant Cell & Environment

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The heat tolerance of photosystem II (PSII) may promote carbon assimilation at higher temperatures and help explain plant responses to climate change. Higher PSII heat tolerance could lead to (a) increases in the high‐temperature compensation point (Tmax); (b) increases in the thermal breadth of photosynthesis (i.e. the photosynthetic parameter Ω) to promote a thermal generalist strategy of carbon assimilation; (c) increases in the optimum rate of carbon assimilation Popt and faster carbon assimilation and/or (d) increases in the optimum temperature for photosynthesis (Topt). To address these hypotheses, we tested if the Tcrit, T50 and T95 PSII heat tolerances were correlated with carbon assimilation parameters for 21 plant species. Our results did not support Hypothesis 1, but we observed that T50 may be used to estimate the upper thermal limit for Tmax at the species level, and that community mean Tcrit may be useful for approximating Tmax. The T50 and T95 heat tolerance metrics were positively correlated with Ω in support of Hypothesis 2. We found no support for Hypotheses 3 or 4. Our study shows that high PSII heat tolerance is unlikely to improve carbon assimilation at higher temperatures but may characterize thermal generalists with slow resource acquisition strategies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Photosystem II heat tolerances characterize thermal generalists and the upper limit of carbon assimilation

Perez

Socha

Tserej

et al. 2021

Plant Cell & Environment

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“…Guenther, 1997;Sharkey & Monson, 2014). The present and future distributions of heattolerant emitters may also be a key determinant of the sensitivity of forest carbon uptake to climate warming (Feeley et al, 2020;Smith et al, 2020). Limited data suggests that the enhanced thermal tolerance of isoprene emitting species shapes their distributions across tropical landscapes and through time (Taylor et al, 2019), but the quantified uncertainty in emitter distributions is high due to limited species sampling (Taylor et al, 2018).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new field instrument for leaf volatiles reveals an unexpected vertical profile of isoprenoid emission capacities in a tropical forest

Taylor

Wisniewski

Alves

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Both plant physiology and atmospheric chemistry are substantially altered by the emission of volatile isoprenoids (VI), such as isoprene and monoterpenes, from plant leaves. Yet, since gaining scientific attention in the 1950's, empirical research on leaf VI has been largely confined to laboratory experiments and atmospheric observations. Here, we introduce a new field instrument designed to bridge the scales from leaf to atmosphere, by enabling precision VI detection in real time from plants in their natural ecological setting. With a field campaign in the Brazilian Amazon, we reveal an unexpected distribution of leaf emission capacities (EC) across the vertical axis of the forest canopy, with EC peaking in the mid-canopy instead of the sun-exposed canopy surface, and high emissions occurring in understory specialist species. Compared to the simple interpretation that VI protect leaves from heat stress at the hot canopy surface, our results encourage a more nuanced view of the adaptive role of VI in plants. We infer that forest emissions to the atmosphere depend on the dynamic microenvironments imposed by canopy structure, and not simply on canopy surface conditions. We provide a new emissions inventory from 51 tropical tree species, revealing moderate consistency in EC within taxonomic groups. Our self-contained, portable instrument provides real-time detection and live measurement feedback with precision and detection limits better than 0.5 nmol m-2leaf s-1. We call the instrument 'PORCO' based on the gas detection method: photoionization of organic compounds. We provide a thorough validation of PORCO and demonstrate its capacity to detect ecologically driven variation in leaf emission rates and thus accelerate a nascent field of science: the ecology and ecophysiology of plant volatiles.

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“…Indeed, tree‐ring studies from forests around the world indicate that tree growth rates—along with ANPP stem and possibly other ecosystem C fluxes—often respond negatively to growing season temperature, particularly in warmer climates (e.g., Helcoski et al, 2019; Klesse et al, 2018; Martin‐Benito & Pederson, 2015; Vlam et al, 2014). Furthermore, in the tropics, climate change will push temperatures beyond any contemporary climate, and there are some indications that this could reduce forest C flux rates (Mau et al, 2018; Sullivan et al, 2020) if paralleled by VPD increases (Smith et al, 2020). Further research is required to understand the extent to which forest responses to climate change will track the observed global gradients, and the time scale on which they will do so.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global patterns of forest autotrophic carbon fluxes

Morgan

Herrmann

Kunert

et al. 2021

Global Change Biology

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Carbon (C) fixation, allocation, and metabolism by trees set the basis for energy and material flows in forest ecosystems and define their interactions with Earth's changing climate. However, while many studies have considered variation in productivity with latitude and climate, we lack a cohesive synthesis on how forest carbon fluxes vary globally with respect to climate and one another. Here, we draw upon 1,319 records from the Global Forest Carbon Database, representing all major forest types and the nine most significant autotrophic carbon fluxes, to comprehensively review how annual C cycling in mature, undisturbed forests varies with latitude and climate on a global scale. Across all flux variables analyzed, rates of C cycling decreased continuously with absolute latitude-a finding that confirms multiple previous studies and contradicts the idea that net primary productivity of temperate forests rivals that of tropical forests. C flux variables generally displayed similar trends across latitude and multiple climate variables, with no differences in allocation detected at this global scale. Temperature variables in general, and mean annual temperature or temperature seasonality in particular, were the best single predictors of C flux, explaining 19%-71% of variation in the C fluxes analyzed. The effects of temperature were modified by moisture availability, with C flux reduced under hot and dry conditions and sometimes under very high precipitation. Annual C fluxes increased with growing season length and were also influenced by growing season climate. These findings clarify how forest C flux varies with latitude and climate on a global scale. In an era when forests will play a critical yet uncertain role in shaping Earth's rapidly changing climate, our synthesis provides a foundation for understanding global patterns in forest C cycling.

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Empirical evidence for resilience of tropical forest photosynthesis in a warmer world

Cited by 90 publications

References 57 publications

Photosystem II heat tolerances characterize thermal generalists and the upper limit of carbon assimilation

Photosystem II heat tolerances characterize thermal generalists and the upper limit of carbon assimilation

A new field instrument for leaf volatiles reveals an unexpected vertical profile of isoprenoid emission capacities in a tropical forest

Global patterns of forest autotrophic carbon fluxes

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