Implications of carbon source-sink feedbacks for plant growth responses to environmental factors

Abstract

Current global models of vegetation dynamics are largely carbon (C) source-driven, with behaviour primarily determined by the environmental responses of photosynthesis. However, real plants operate as integrated wholes, with feedbacks between sources, such as photosynthesis, and sinks, such as growth, resulting in homeostatic concentrations of metabolites such as sugars. A parsimonious approach to implementing this homeostatic coupling of C sources and sinks in a tree growth model is presented, and its implications for the responses of net photosynthesis and growth to environmental factors and tree size assessed. Hill functions describe inhibition of C sources (net photosynthesis) and activation of sinks (structural growth) as sucrose concentration increases. The model is parameterised for a typical tree growing at a site in the Amazonian rainforest and its qualitative behaviour is found to be consistent with observations. A key outcome is that sinks and sources strongly regulate each other. Hence environmental factors that affect potential net photosynthesis, such as atmospheric CO2, have greatly reduced effects on growth when homeostatic feedbacks from sucrose concentrations are considered. For example, compared with a C-source-only-driven approach (as in most current global models), the response of tree biomass for a tree currently 300 yr old, to increasing atmospheric CO2 projected to the end of this century under a high scenario, is reduced by ca.77%, from +122% to +29%, with net photosynthesis and growth rate responses reduced by a similar amount. Furthermore, in this coupled approach, any direct controls on growth (either environmental or through phenological controls on xylogensis) will influence source activity through the sucrose feedback. For example, a reduction in potential growth through temperature constraints on cell-wall construction increases sucrose concentrations, resulting in a compensating reduction in net photosynthesis. While net photosynthesis controls growth, growth controls net photosynthesis. In addition, we find a strong effect of changing tree allometry on C source-sink relations as the tree grows. Larger trees are less source-limited due to a higher ratio of sapwood area (and hence potential C assimilation rate) to potential growth rate, consistent with the observed decline in growth response to atmospheric CO2 as trees age. We suggest that the implications of including C source-sink coupling in models of vegetation dynamics, such as dynamic global vegetation models, are likely to be profound.