Carbon fluxes acclimate more strongly to elevated growth temperatures than to elevated CO2 concentrations in a northern conifer

Abstract

Increasing temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentrations will affect tree carbon fluxes, generating potential feedbacks between forests and the global climate system. We studied how elevated temperatures and CO2 impacted leaf carbon dynamics in Norway spruce (Picea abies), a dominant northern forest species, to improve predictions of future photosynthetic and respiratory fluxes from high-latitude conifers. Seedlings were grown under ambient (AC, c. 435 μmol mol(-1) ) or elevated (EC, 750 μmol mol(-1) ) CO2 concentrations at ambient, +4 °C, or +8 °C growing temperatures. Photosynthetic rates (Asat ) were high in +4 °C/EC seedlings and lowest in +8 °C spruce, implying that moderate, but not extreme, climate change may stimulate carbon uptake. Asat , dark respiration (Rdark ), and light respiration (Rlight ) rates acclimated to temperature, but not CO2 : the thermal optimum of Asat increased, and Rdark and Rlight were suppressed under warming. In all treatments, the Q10 of Rlight (the relative increase in respiration for a 10 °C increase in leaf temperature) was 35% higher than the Q10 of Rdark , so the ratio of Rlight to Rdark increased with rising leaf temperature. However, across all treatments and a range of 10-40 °C leaf temperatures, a consistent relationship between Rlight and Rdark was found, which could be used to model Rlight in future climates. Acclimation reduced daily modeled respiratory losses from warm-grown seedlings by 22-56%. When Rlight was modeled as a constant fraction of Rdark , modeled daily respiratory losses were 11-65% greater than when using measured values of Rlight . Our findings highlight the impact of acclimation to future climates on predictions of carbon uptake and losses in northern trees, in particular the need to model daytime respiratory losses from direct measurements of Rlight or appropriate relationships with Rdark .

Keywords: carbon dioxide; climate change; day respiration; photosynthesis; specific leaf area; thermal acclimation.