Limited suppression of photorespiration by 20th century atmospheric CO2 increase in trees worldwide

• Forests are a key component of the global carbon and hydrological cycle and forest responses to  environmental  drivers  create  important  feedbacks  to  these  cycles.  Photosynthetic efficiency of most forest tree species is strongly limited by photorespiration, a side reaction using O2 instead of CO2 as substrate, leading to a carbon loss for the plant. Photorespiration occurs in all trees and is reduced under elevated CO2 concentrations and increased under elevated temperature. Because the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere has increased in past decades, long-lived trees may have benefited from reduced photorespiration, but the temperature increase would have been a compensating detriment; but direct quantification of long-term changes in metabolic fluxes is lacking. Realistic forecasting of responses of trees and forests to future CO2 and temperature demands quantifying the reduction of photorespiration.  In  twelve  tree  species  from  five  continents,  we  observe  that photorespiration has been reduced by the CO2 increase during the past century, but for most the reduction is smaller than predicted from plant responses in CO2 alone. Comparison with data from a combined CO2 and temperature manipulation experiment shows that the reduced response can be explained by increases in leaf temperatures, which might result directly from increased  air  temperatures  or  indirectly  from  reduced  transpirative  cooling.  These  data suggest that global warming has already inhibited plant fertilization by increasing CO2, and that biomass increases may have been smaller than deduced from measurements of the heavy carbon isotope 13C. Observation of this centennial metabolic shift in tree physiology worldwide provides new insights into forest-climate feedbacks and can be used to improve coupled climate-vegetation models.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Kemi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Chemical Sciences (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Klimatforskning (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Climate Research (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

ovr (subject category)