The Variation of Productivity and Its Allocation Along a Tropical Elevation Gradient: A Whole Carbon Budget Perspective

Authors

Yadvinder Malhi, University of Oxford
Cécile A. J. Girardin, University of Oxford
Gregory R. Goldsmith, Chapman UniversityFollow
Christopher E. Doughty, University of Oxford
Norma Salinas, University of Oxford
Daniel B. Metcalfe, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Walter Huaraca Huasco, Universidad 16 Nacional San Antonio Abad del Cusco
Javier E. Silva-Espejo, Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad del Cusco
Jhon del Aguilla-Pasquell, IIAP, Peru
Filio Farfán Amézquita, Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad del Cusco
Luiz E.O.C. Aragão, University of Exeter
Rossella Guerrieri, University of New Hampshire
Françoise Yoko Ishida, James Cook University, Cairns Campus
Nur Bahar, Australia National University
William Farfan-Rios, Wake Forest University
Oliver L. Phillips, University of Leeds
Patrick Meir, University of Edinburgh
Miles Silman, Wake Forest University

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-21-2016

Abstract

• 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.

Comments

This is the accepted version of the following article:

Malhi, Y., Girardin, C. A. J., Goldsmith, G. R., Doughty, C. E., Salinas, N., Metcalfe, D. B., Huaraca Huasco, W., Silva-Espejo, J. E., del Aguilla-Pasquell, J., Farfán Amézquita, F., Aragão, L. E. O. C., Guerrieri, R., Ishida, F. Y., Bahar, N. H. A., Farfan-Rios, W., Phillips, O. L., Meir, P. and Silman, M. (2017), The variation of productivity and its allocation along a tropical elevation gradient: a whole carbon budget perspective. New Phytol, 214: 1019–1032.

which has been published in final form at DOI:10.1111/nph.14189. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.

Recommended Citation

Malhi, Y., Girardin, C. A. J., Goldsmith, G. R., Doughty, C. E., Salinas, N., Metcalfe, D. B., Huaraca Huasco, W., Silva-Espejo, J. E., del Aguilla-Pasquell, J., Farfán Amézquita, F., Aragão, L. E. O. C., Guerrieri, R., Ishida, F. Y., Bahar, N. H. A., Farfan-Rios, W., Phillips, O. L., Meir, P. and Silman, M. (2017), The variation of productivity and its allocation along a tropical elevation gradient: a whole carbon budget perspective. New Phytol, 214: 1019–1032. doi:10.1111/nph.14189

Copyright

The authors