Hot drought reduces the effects of elevated CO2 on tree water-use efficiency and carbon metabolism

Birami, Benjamin; Naegele, Thomas; Gattmann, Marielle; Preisler, Yakir; Gast, Andreas; Arneth, Almut and Ruehr, Nadine K. (2020): Hot drought reduces the effects of elevated CO2 on tree water-use efficiency and carbon metabolism. In: New Phytologist, Vol. 226, No. 6: pp. 1607-1621

Abstract

Trees are increasingly exposed to hot droughts due to CO2-induced climate change. However, the direct role of [CO2] in altering tree physiological responses to drought and heat stress remains ambiguous. Pinus halepensis (Aleppo pine) trees were grown from seed under ambient (421 ppm) or elevated (867 ppm) [CO2]. The 1.5-yr-old trees, either well watered or drought treated for 1 month, were transferred to separate gas-exchange chambers and the temperature gradually increased from 25 degrees C to 40 degrees C over a 10 d period. Continuous whole-tree shoot and root gas-exchange measurements were supplemented by primary metabolite analysis. Elevated [CO2] reduced tree water loss, reflected in lower stomatal conductance, resulting in a higher water-use efficiency throughout amplifying heat stress. Net carbon uptake declined strongly, driven by increases in respiration peaking earlier in the well-watered (31-32 degrees C) than drought (33-34 degrees C) treatments unaffected by growth [CO2]. Further, drought altered the primary metabolome, whereas the metabolic response to [CO2] was subtle and mainly reflected in enhanced root protein stability. The impact of elevated [CO2] on tree stress responses was modest and largely vanished with progressing heat and drought. We therefore conclude that increases in atmospheric [CO2] cannot counterbalance the impacts of hot drought extremes in Aleppo pine.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Biology > Department Biology I
• Subjects: 500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology
• ISSN: 0028-646X
• Language: English