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Eyes on the future – evidence for trade‐offs between growth, storage and defense in Norway spruce
Author(s) -
Huang Jianbei,
Hammerbacher Almuth,
Weinhold Alexander,
Reichelt Michael,
Gleixner Gerd,
Behrendt Thomas,
Dam Nicole M.,
Sala Anna,
Gershenzon Jonathan,
Trumbore Susan,
Hartmann Henrik
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
new phytologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.742
H-Index - 244
eISSN - 1469-8137
pISSN - 0028-646X
DOI - 10.1111/nph.15522
Subject(s) - picea abies , biomass (ecology) , respiration , biology , botany , ecology
Summary Carbon (C) allocation plays a central role in tree responses to environmental changes. Yet, fundamental questions remain about how trees allocate C to different sinks, for example, growth vs storage and defense. In order to elucidate allocation priorities, we manipulated the whole‐tree C balance by modifying atmospheric CO 2 concentrations [ CO 2 ] to create two distinct gradients of declining C availability, and compared how C was allocated among fluxes (respiration and volatile monoterpenes) and biomass C pools (total biomass, nonstructural carbohydrates ( NSC ) and secondary metabolites ( SM )) in well‐watered Norway spruce ( Picea abies ) saplings. Continuous isotope labelling was used to trace the fate of newly‐assimilated C. Reducing [ CO 2 ] to 120 ppm caused an aboveground C compensation point (i.e. net C balance was zero) and resulted in decreases in growth and respiration. By contrast, soluble sugars and SM remained relatively constant in aboveground young organs and were partially maintained with a constant allocation of newly‐assimilated C, even at expense of root death from C exhaustion. We conclude that spruce trees have a conservative allocation strategy under source limitation: growth and respiration can be downregulated to maintain ‘operational’ concentrations of NSC while investing newly‐assimilated C into future survival by producing SM .