Two tropical conifers show strong growth and water-use efficiency responses to altered CO2 concentration.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Conifers dominated wet lowland tropical forests 100 million years ago (MYA). With a few exceptions in the Podocarpaceae and Araucariaceae, conifers are now absent from this biome. This shift to angiosperm dominance also coincided with a large decline in atmospheric CO₂ concentration (c_a). We compared growth and physiological performance of two lowland tropical angiosperms and conifers at c_a levels representing pre-industrial (280 ppm), ambient (400 ppm) and Eocene (800 ppm) conditions to explore how differences in c_a affect the growth and water-use efficiency (WUE) of seedlings from these groups.

Methods

Two conifers (Araucaria heterophylla and Podocarpus guatemalensis) and two angiosperm trees (Tabebuia rosea a

SUBMITTER: Dalling JW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5091724 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature