Ítem
Acceso Abierto
Unexpected Large Photosynthetic Thermal Plasticity of Montane Andean Trees
Título de la revista
Autores
Dusenge, Mirindi Eric
González-Caro, Sebastian
Restrepo, Zorayda
Gardner, Anna
Meir, Patrick
Hartley, Iain P.
Sitch, Stephen
Sanchez, Adriana
Villegas, Juan Camilo
Mercado, Lina M.
Fecha
2025-05-13
Directores
ISSN de la revista
Título del volumen
Editor
Wiley
Buscar en:
Métricas alternativas
Resumen
Abstract
Tropical forests play a significant role in global carbon sequestration. However, our understanding of how tropical tree speciesadjust to climate warming remains limited to studies on seedlings grown in pots and highly controlled growth conditions. Toreduce this knowledge gap, we used a field experiment with 5-year-old juvenile trees of 12 naturally co-occurring dominant trop-ical Andean montane and lowland species growing in three common gardens established along a natural thermosequence in thetropical Andes. Based on a few previous studies, we hypothesized that montane species would exhibit a weaker photosyntheticthermal acclimation capacity compared to lowland counterparts. Our results showed that montane tree species can thermallyacclimate net photosynthesis by shifting their thermal optimum (Topt) by 0.6°C per 1°C of warming. This strong shift in Topt wascorrelated to simultaneous strong shifts in Topt of apparent photosynthetic capacity parameters (Vcmax and Jmax), which increasedby 0.7°C per 1°C of warming. This strong thermal acclimation resulted in similar rates of net CO 2 assimilation between montaneand lowland species across different thermal environments. At last, rates of net photosynthesis at growth temperature explained30% of the variation in the relative tree growth rates across the two species groups and thermal environments. Our results suggestthat the strong physiological acclimation of photosynthesis to warming among montane Andean tree species should be consid-ered when predicting future impacts of warming on Andean plant communities.
Palabras clave
Keywords
Acclimation , Climate change , Photosynthesis , Tropical montane forests
