Extensive belowground carbon storage supports roots and mycorrhizae in regenerating scrub oaks

Langley, J. Adam; Drake, Bert G.; Hungate, Bruce A.

doi:10.1007/s00442-002-0932-6

Cited by 79 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 26 publications

(29 reference statements)

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“…These results complement the observations that plants allocate stored C pools for root and mycorrhizae following fire disturbances, 16 and provide insights of other metabolic functions of stored C. The capacity of plants to allocate old C for plant structures that will enhance water and nutrient uptake may be an adaptation of plants in systems subject to LIDs.…”

supporting

confidence: 74%

On the fate of old stored carbon after large-infrequent disturbances in plants

Vargas

2009

Plant Signaling & Behavior

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Plants have the capacity to store and reallocate stored nonstructural C, but little is known about the age and ecological roles of these pools. It was thought that plants allocate recently assimilated C to produce new fine roots. However, there is recent evidence that plants can allocate old stored C for the production of fine roots following a large-infrequent disturbance (LID) providing a new dimension of the fate and the implied role of stored C in plants. Here, I explore other possible adaptations of plants to allocate stored C reserves, and provide a series of open questions on the fate of old stored C in plants. Specifically, I propose that another metabolic function of old stored C may be for supporting mycorrhizal fungi colonization after a largeinfrequent disturbance, because the production of hyphae may be more economical in terms of C to the plant under stressful conditions. Finally, in order to better understand plant resilience to LIDs it is critical to understand the mechanisms that regulate the fate of old stored C in plants.Plants have the capacity to store non-structural C, but little is known about the sizes, ages and ecological roles of these pools. Radiocarbon ( 14 C) dating has shown that plants allocate recently assimilated C to produce new fine roots in temperate, 1,2 and tropical forests. 3 However, Vargas et al. 4 provided evidence that plants can allocate old stored C (up to 11 years in mature forests) for the production of fine roots following a large-infrequent disturbance (LID), and provided a new dimension of the fate and the implied role of stored C in plants. Here, I present new data on a young forest stand and explore other possible adaptations of plants to allocate stored C reserves, and provide a series of questions for further lines of research in plant physiology and plant biochemistry research in this regard.The study was conducted at El Eden Ecological Reserve (lat 21°12.6'N, long 87°10.93'W) in the northeast Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. The study site is a seasonally dry tropical forest where recurrent LIDs (e.g., fires and hurricanes) have created a landscape of forests of different ages. 5,6 During September and December of 2005, nine soil cores were collected at a 16-year old forest stand as described in Vargas et al. 4 The soil cores were sieved through a 2 mm mesh and fine roots were sorted by hand to determine AM colonization and radiocarbon ( 14 C) values of live roots. Additionally, root in-growth cores were buried (10 cm depth) in duplicates at the forest stand. Sieved and clean fine roots were prepared for analysis of percentage colonization of AM structures 7 (e.g., hyphae, arbuscules and vesicles). Radiocarbon ( 14 C) was used to estimate the mean age of structural C in fine roots. Briefly, roots were treated with an acid-base-acid procedure to remove nonstructural C, oven dried at 65°C and then ground following previous studies. 1,4 Radiocarbon values of structural C in live roots before the hurricane showed that these roots were produced from recently fixed ...

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supporting

confidence: 74%

On the fate of old stored carbon after large-infrequent disturbances in plants

Vargas

2009

Plant Signaling & Behavior

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“…Finally, lignotuber NSC reserves are recharged by the initial coppice shoots over the following growing season and after bolting, and thus increase with plant age. Belowground NSC also supports the production of fine roots in systems with severe and frequent fire disturbances (72). Given that resprouting is a common strategy that can be more successful than seed regeneration even outside of fire-prone systems (27) and that resprouting appears to be the ancestral trait among angiosperm trees (24), we should expect selective pressure along a growth-storage trade-off.…”

Section: Relationships To Demographic Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonstructural Carbon in Woody Plants

Dietze

Sala

Carbone

et al. 2014

Annu. Rev. Plant Biol.

593

517

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Nonstructural carbon (NSC) provides the carbon and energy for plant growth and survival. In woody plants, fundamental questions about NSC remain unresolved: Is NSC storage an active or passive process? Do older NSC reserves remain accessible to the plant? How is NSC depletion related to mortality risk? Herein we review conceptual and mathematical models of NSC dynamics, recent observations and experiments at the organismal scale, and advances in plant physiology that have provided a better understanding of the dynamics of woody plant NSC. Plants preferentially use new carbon but can access decade-old carbon when the plant is stressed or physically damaged. In addition to serving as a carbon and energy source, NSC plays important roles in phloem transport, osmoregulation, and cold tolerance, but how plants regulate these competing roles and NSC depletion remains elusive. Moving forward requires greater synthesis of models and data and integration across scales from -omics to ecology. 667

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“…An offset (α) was used to account for differences between shoots and roots arising either from fractionation or the incomplete integration of novel 13 C into the root system (Langley et al 2002). The α value was determined by comparing roots from a known species to shoots in the same plots for each CO 2 treatment group in each year (2007: ambient0−1.0‰, elevated0−0.5‰; 2008: ambient0 −0.5‰, elevated01.1‰).…”

Section: Plant Growth Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

C3 and C4 Biomass Allocation Responses to Elevated CO2 and Nitrogen: Contrasting Resource Capture Strategies

White

Langley

Cahoon

et al. 2012

Estuaries and Coasts

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Plants alter biomass allocation to optimize resource capture. Plant strategy for resource capture may have important implications in intertidal marshes, where soil nitrogen (N) levels and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) are changing. We conducted a factorial manipulation of atmospheric CO 2 (ambient and ambient+340 ppm) and soil N (ambient and ambient+25 gm −2 year −1 ) in an intertidal marsh composed of common North Atlantic C 3 and C 4 species. Estimation of C 3 stem turnover was used to adjust aboveground C 3 productivity, and fine root productivity was partitioned into C 3 -C 4 functional groups by isotopic analysis. The results suggest that the plants follow resource capture theory. The C 3 species increased aboveground productivity under the added N and elevated CO 2 treatment (P< 0.0001), but did not under either added N or elevated CO 2 alone. C 3 fine root production decreased with added N (P< 0.0001), but fine roots increased under elevated CO 2 (P0 0.0481). The C 4 species increased growth under high N availability both above-and belowground, but that stimulation was diminished under elevated CO 2 . The results suggest that the marsh vegetation allocates biomass according to resource capture at the individual plant level rather than for optimal ecosystem viability in regards to biomass influence over the processes that maintain soil surface elevation in equilibrium with sea level.

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Extensive belowground carbon storage supports roots and mycorrhizae in regenerating scrub oaks

Cited by 79 publications

References 26 publications

On the fate of old stored carbon after large-infrequent disturbances in plants

On the fate of old stored carbon after large-infrequent disturbances in plants

Nonstructural Carbon in Woody Plants

C3 and C4 Biomass Allocation Responses to Elevated CO2 and Nitrogen: Contrasting Resource Capture Strategies

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