Biome-specific effects of nitrogen and phosphorus on the photosynthetic characteristics of trees at a forest-savanna boundary in Cameroon
Domingues, Thomas Ferreira, Ishida, F. Yoko, Feldpausch, Ted R., Grace, John, Meir, Patrick, Saiz, Gustavo, Sene, Olivier, Schrodt, Franziska, Sonké, Bonaventure, Taedoumg, Herman, Veenendaal, Elmar M., Lewis, Simon, and Lloyd, Jon (2015) Biome-specific effects of nitrogen and phosphorus on the photosynthetic characteristics of trees at a forest-savanna boundary in Cameroon. Oecologia, 178 (3). pp. 659-672.
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Abstract
Photosynthesis/nutrient relationships of proximally growing forest and savanna trees were determined in an ecotonal region of Cameroon (Africa). Although area-based foliar N concentrations were typically lower for savanna trees, there was no difference in photosynthetic rates between the two vegetation formation types. Opposite to N, area-based P concentrations were—on average—slightly lower for forest trees; a dependency of photosynthetic characteristics on foliar P was only evident for savanna trees. Thus savanna trees use N more efficiently than their forest counterparts, but only in the presence of relatively high foliar P. Along with some other recent studies, these results suggest that both N and P are important modulators of woody tropical plant photosynthetic capacities, influencing photosynthetic metabolism in different ways that are also biome specific. Attempts to find simple unifying equations to describe woody tropical vegetation photosynthesis-nutrient relationships are likely to meet with failure, with ecophysiological distinctions between forest and savanna requiring acknowledgement.
Item ID: | 39266 |
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Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
ISSN: | 1432-1939 |
Additional Information: | This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited. |
Funders: | UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Royal Society |
Projects and Grants: | NERC TROBIT Consortium award NE/D005590/1, NERC TROBIT Consortium award NE/D01185x/1 |
Date Deposited: | 25 Jun 2015 03:05 |
FoR Codes: | 05 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 0501 Ecological Applications > 050101 Ecological Impacts of Climate Change @ 40% 06 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 0607 Plant Biology > 060705 Plant Physiology @ 60% |
SEO Codes: | 96 ENVIRONMENT > 9603 Climate and Climate Change > 960305 Ecosystem Adaptation to Climate Change @ 60% 96 ENVIRONMENT > 9603 Climate and Climate Change > 960301 Climate Change Adaptation Measures @ 40% |
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