Carbon dynamics in aboveground biomass of co‐dominant plant species in a temperate grassland ecosystem: same or different?. Issue 2 (22nd December 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ostler, Ulrike; Schleip, Inga; Lattanzi, Fernando A.; Schnyder, Hans
• Is Part Of: New phytologist. Volume 210:Issue 2(2016)
• Page Start: 471
• Page End: 484
• Publication Date: 2015-12-22
• Subjects: 13C labelling -- carbon (C) allocation and partitioning -- carbon pool turnover -- carbon residence time -- functional groups -- grassland -- leaf life span -- structural and nonstructural biomass; Botany -- Periodicals; 580
• DOI: 10.1111/nph.13800
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0028-646X

Abstract

Summary: Understanding the role of individual organisms in whole‐ecosystem carbon (C) fluxes is probably the biggest current challenge in C cycle research. Thus, it is unknown whether different plant community members share the same or different residence times in metabolic (τmetab ) and nonmetabolic (i.e. structural) (τnonmetab ) C pools of aboveground biomass and the fraction of fixed C allocated to aboveground nonmetabolic biomass ( A nonmetab ). We assessed τmetab, τnonmetab and A nonmetab of co‐dominant species from different functional groups (two bunchgrasses, a stoloniferous legume and a rosette dicot) in a temperate grassland community. Continuous, 14–16‐d‐long 13 C‐labeling experiments were performed in September 2006, May 2007 and September 2007. A two‐pool compartmental system, with a well‐mixed metabolic and a nonmixed nonmetabolic pool, was the simplest biologically meaningful model that fitted the 13 C tracer kinetics in the whole‐shoot biomass of all species. In all experimental periods, the species had similar τmetab (5–8 d), whereas τnonmetab ranged from 20 to 58 d (except for one outlier) and A nonmetab from 7 to 45%. Variations in τnonmetab and A nonmetab were not systematically associated with species or experimental periods, but exhibited relationships with leaf life span, particularly in the grasses. Similar pool kinetics of species suggested similar kinetics at the community level.