Hungry and thirsty: Effects of CO2 and limited water availability on plant performance

Andries A. Temme*, Jin Chun Liu, Will K. Cornwell, Rien Aerts, Johannes H.C. Cornelissen

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

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    Abstract

    Carbon dioxide and water are crucial resources for plant growth. With anthropogenic fossil fuel emissions, CO2 availability is and has been increasing since the last glacial maximum. Simultaneously water availability is expected to decrease and the frequency and severity of drought episodes to increase in large parts of the world. How plants respond to these two changes will help in understanding plants’ responses to climate of the future. Here we sought to understand how drought affects plant traits responses to CO2 and whether there are trade-offs in responsiveness to low and elevated CO2 and drought. We grew seedlings of seven C3 annuals at past low (160 μl l−1), ambient (450 μl l−1) and elevated (750 μl l−1) CO2. At each concentration plants were subjected to well-watered conditions (100% soil water availability, SWA), 40% SWA or 20% SWA. We measured biomass allocation, relative growth rate, tissue N concentration, and gas exchange. Compared to well-watered conditions plant size was an important element in the absolute response to SWA decrease, i.e. the smaller, slow growing species were unaffected by drought at low CO2. Plants allocated less mass to root tissue at low CO2 contrasting with increased root mass fraction at lower SWA at ambient CO2. Across all traits measured, we found mostly additive effects of CO2 and water. As due to climate change regions become more drought prone these results suggest CO2 fertilization will not counteract the effects of reduced water availability.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)188-193
    Number of pages6
    JournalFlora: Morphology, Distribution, Functional Ecology of Plants
    Volume254
    Early online date20 Nov 2018
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - May 2019

    Funding

    We would like to thank R.C.E. de Man and R.A.M. Welschen for their aid and advice in growing and harvesting the many plants grown during this experiment; and Utrecht University for hosting us during this experiment. We would like to thank the reviewers for their constructive comments. This study was financially supported by grant 142.16.3032 of the Darwin Centre for Biogeosciences to RA. JHCC and JCL benefitted from Grant CEP-12CDP007 by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and JCL from grant ( 31500399 ) by the National Natural Science Foundation of China . Appendix A

    FundersFunder number
    Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van WetenschappenCEP-12CDP007
    National Natural Science Foundation of China31500399
    Universiteit Utrecht142.16.3032
    Darwin Center for Biogeosciences

      Keywords

      • Annual C herbs
      • Biomass allocation
      • Drought
      • Elevated CO
      • Gas exchange
      • Growth
      • Plant traits

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