Using direct phloem transport manipulation to advance understanding of carbon dynamics in forest trees

Published by Stephanie Mayer on

Carbon dynamics within trees are intrinsically important for physiological functioning, in particular growth and survival, as well as ecological interactions on multiple timescales. Thus, these internal dynamics play a key role in the global carbon cycle by determining the residence time of carbon in forests via allocation to different tissues and pools, such as leaves, wood, storage, and exudates. Despite the importance of tree internal carbon dynamics, our understanding of how carbon is used in trees, once assimilated, has major gaps. The primary tissue that transports carbon from sources to sinks within a tree is the phloem. Therefore, direct phloem transport manipulation techniques have the potential to improve understanding of numerous aspects of internal carbon dynamics. These include relationships between carbon assimilation, nonstructural carbon availability, respiration for growth and tissue maintenance, allocation to, and remobilization from, storage reserves, and long-term sequestration in lignified structural tissues. This review aims to: (1) introduce the topic of direct phloem transport manipulations, (2) describe the three most common methods of direct phloem transport manipulation and review their mechanisms, namely (i) girdling, (ii) compression and (iii) chilling; (3) summarize the known impacts of these manipulations on carbon dynamics and use in forest trees; (4) discuss potential collateral effects and compare the methods; and finally (5) highlight outstanding key questions that relate to tree carbon dynamics and use, and propose ways to address them using direct phloem transport manipulation.

Categories:

Related Posts

A CIRCUIT SHOWS HOW CLIMATE WARMING MAY ALTER DIFFERENT ECOLOGICAL LEGACIES IN THE ARCTIC BOREAL FOREST, WHICH THEN FEEDBACK INTO CLIMATE WARMING AND CHANGES TO LANDSCAPE PROCESSES.

NAU-led research team receives $9.6M to study how Alaska’s forests change, adapt to warmer future

Ecological memory stored in a landscape can help an ecosystem recover from disturbances like fire and outbreaks of disease. But what happens when climate warming disrupts that process? How long before ecological memories stored in Read more…

A SCATTERPLOT DEPICTS HOW MUCH CARBON OR OXYGEN ISOTOPE DIFFERENT SOIL BACTERIA TOOK INTO THEIR DNA (A PROXY FOR GROWTH) DURING A 7-DAY EXPERIMENT. SMALL POINTS REPRESENT THE GROWTH OF INDIVIDUAL BACTERIAL STRAINS LINKED BY LINES TO THE AVERAGE GROWTH OF THEIR CLOSEST IDENTIFIED GENUS. COLORS WERE ASSIGNED BY A CLUSTERING ALGORITHM TO GROUP GENERA INTO FAST-GROWING OR SLOW-GROWING LIFESTYLES.

Lifestyles of the fast and slow (bacteria): In the wild, most live in the slow lane

A study led by Northern Arizona University offers new evidence that a common framework to sort bacteria into two lifestyles doesn’t easily apply to bacteria living in wild soil. The findings, published in The ISME Journal, show Read more…

A trio of illustrated panels depicts the soil microbial communities in three treatments of a long-term warming experiment north of Flagstaff, Arizona. The panels are labeled in gray text, left to right: control, short-term warming, long-term warming. The control treatment, far left, depicts bacteria, protists, and other microorganisms identified by sequencing the soil’s metagenome in yellow, orange, green, and blue, along with chains of available nutrients. Soil depicted in the center panel, which has undergone short-term warming, shows an increased abundance and diversity of microbes, some of which are growing, incorporating nutrients, and respiring carbon dioxide. The soil that has undergone long-term warming, imagined in the panel on the right, shows fewer microbial species and competitive relationships that are developing for control of the scarcer nutrients.

Does a warmer future favor microbial friend or foe? Ecoss researchers win $3.4M to study interactions in changing soil

In 2002, the Odyssey probe discovered evidence of past ice on Mars. The U.S. Congress authorized the Iraq War resolution. The Anaheim Angels won the World Series. And in a meadow 15 miles north of Read more…