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The variation of productivity and its allocation along a tropical elevation gradient: a whole carbon budget perspective.

  • Malhi Y Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK.
  • Girardin CA Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK.
  • Goldsmith GR Ecosystem Fluxes Group, Laboratory for Atmospheric Chemistry, Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen PSI, 5232, Switzerland.
  • Doughty CE Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK.
  • Salinas N Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK.
  • Metcalfe DB Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, SE 223 62, Lund, Sweden.
  • Huaraca Huasco W Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad del Cusco, Cusco, Peru.
  • Silva-Espejo JE Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad del Cusco, Cusco, Peru.
  • Del Aguilla-Pasquell J IIAP, Iquitos, Peru.
  • Farfán Amézquita F Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad del Cusco, Cusco, Peru.
  • Aragão LE Remote Sensing Division, National Institute for Space Research, Av. dos Astronautas, 1.758, São José dos Campos, SP, 12227-010, Brazil.
  • Guerrieri R Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications, CREAF c/o Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Edificio C, 08290, Cerdanyola, Barcelona, Spain.
  • Ishida FY College of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Centre of Tropical Environmental and Sustainabilility Science, James Cook University, Cairns, Qld, 4870, Australia.
  • Bahar NH ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, Research School of Biology, Building 134, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
  • Farfan-Rios W Department of Biology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, 27109, USA.
  • Phillips OL School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.
  • Meir P School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9XP, UK.
  • Silman M Department of Biology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, 27109, USA.
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  • 2016-10-22
Published in:
  • The New phytologist. - 2017
RAINFOR
Global Ecosystems Monitoring network (GEM)
climate
cloud forest
photosynthesis
physiology
temperature
Altitude
Autotrophic Processes
Carbon
Carbon Cycle
Forests
Photosynthesis
Tropical Climate
English Why do forest productivity and biomass decline with elevation? To address this question, research to date generally has focused on correlative approaches describing changes in woody growth and biomass with elevation. We present a novel, mechanistic approach to this question by quantifying the autotrophic carbon budget in 16 forest plots along a 3300 m elevation transect in Peru. Low growth rates at high elevations appear primarily driven by low gross primary productivity (GPP), with little shift in either carbon use efficiency (CUE) or allocation of net primary productivity (NPP) between wood, fine roots and canopy. The lack of trend in CUE implies that the proportion of photosynthate allocated to autotrophic respiration is not sensitive to temperature. Rather than a gradual linear decline in productivity, there is some limited but nonconclusive evidence of a sharp transition in NPP between submontane and montane forests, which may be caused by cloud immersion effects within the cloud forest zone. Leaf-level photosynthetic parameters do not decline with elevation, implying that nutrient limitation does not restrict photosynthesis at high elevations. Our data demonstrate the potential of whole carbon budget perspectives to provide a deeper understanding of controls on ecosystem functioning and carbon cycling.
Language
  • English
Open access status
bronze
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Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/86471
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