Insights into source/sink controls on wood formation and photosynthesis from a stem chilling experiment in mature red maple.

Whether sources or sinks control wood growth remains debated with a paucity of evidence from mature trees in natural settings. Here, we altered carbon supply rate in stems of mature red maples (Acer rubrum) within the growing season by restricting phloem transport using stem chilling; thereby increasing carbon supply above and decreasing carbon supply below the restrictions, respectively. Chilling successfully altered nonstructural carbon (NSC) concentrations in the phloem without detectable repercussions on bulk NSC in stems and roots. Ring width responded strongly to local variations in carbon supply with up to seven-fold differences along the stem of chilled trees; however, concurrent changes in the structural carbon were inconclusive at high carbon supply due to large local variability of wood growth. Above chilling-induced bottlenecks, we also observed higher leaf NSC concentrations, reduced photosynthetic capacity, and earlier leaf coloration and fall. Our results indicate that the cambial sink is affected by carbon supply, but within-tree feedbacks can downregulate source activity, when carbon supply exceeds demand. Such feedbacks have only been hypothesized in mature trees. Consequently, these findings constitute an important advance in understanding source-sink dynamics, suggesting that mature red maples operate close to both source- and sink-limitation in the early growing season.

Climate Change Across Seasons Experiment (CCASE): A new method for simulating future climate in seasonally snow-covered ecosystems.

Climate models project an increase in mean annual air temperatures and a reduction in the depth and duration of winter snowpack for many mid and high latitude and high elevation seasonally snow-covered ecosystems over the next century. The combined effects of these changes in climate will lead to warmer soils in the growing season and increased frequency of soil freeze-thaw cycles (FTCs) in winter due to the loss of a continuous, insulating snowpack. Previous experiments have warmed soils or removed snow via shoveling or with shelters to mimic projected declines in the winter snowpack. To our knowledge, no experiment has examined the interactive effects of declining snowpack and increased frequency of soil FTCs, combined with soil warming in the snow-free season on terrestrial ecosystems. In addition, none have mimicked directly the projected increase in soil FTC frequency in tall statured forests that is expected as a result of a loss of insulating snow in winter. We established the Climate Change Across Seasons Experiment (CCASE) at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in the White Mountains of New Hampshire in 2012 to assess the combined effects of these changes in climate on a variety of pedoclimate conditions, biogeochemical processes, and ecology of northern hardwood forests. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of creating soil FTC events in a tall statured ecosystem in winter to simulate the projected increase in soil FTC frequency over the next century and combines this projected change in winter climate with ecosystem warming throughout the snow-free season. Together, this experiment provides a new and more comprehensive approach for climate change experiments that can be adopted in other seasonally snow-covered ecosystems to simulate expected changes resulting from global air temperature rise.

Soil warming, carbon-nitrogen interactions, and forest carbon budgets.

Soil warming has the potential to alter both soil and plant processes that affect carbon storage in forest ecosystems. We have quantified these effects in a large, long-term (7-y) soil-warming study in a deciduous forest in New England. Soil warming has resulted in carbon losses from the soil and stimulated carbon gains in the woody tissue of trees. The warming-enhanced decay of soil organic matter also released enough additional inorganic nitrogen into the soil solution to support the observed increases in plant carbon storage. Although soil warming has resulted in a cumulative net loss of carbon from a New England forest relative to a control area over the 7-y study, the annual net losses generally decreased over time as plant carbon storage increased. In the seventh year, warming-induced soil carbon losses were almost totally compensated for by plant carbon gains in response to warming. We attribute the plant gains primarily to warming-induced increases in nitrogen availability. This study underscores the importance of incorporating carbon-nitrogen interactions in atmosphere-ocean-land earth system models to accurately simulate land feedbacks to the climate system.

Soil warming and trace gas fluxes: experimental design and preliminary flux results.

We conducted several experiments to determine a procedure for uniformly warming soil 5° C above ambient using a buried heating cable. These experiments produced a successful design that could: 1) maintain a temperature difference of 5° C over a wide range of environmental conditions; 2) reduce inter-cable temperture variability to ca. 1.5° C; 3) maintain a temperature difference of 5° C near the edges of the plot; and 4) respond rapidly to changes in the environment. In addition, this design required electrical power only 42% of the time. Preliminary measurements indicate that heating increased CO2 emission by a factor of ca. 1.6 and decreased the C concentration in the O soil horizon by as much as 36%. In addition, warming the soil accelerated the emergence and early growth of the wild lily of the valley (Maianthemum canadense Desf.). The relationship between CO2 flux and soil temperature derived from our soil warming experiment was consistent with data from other hardwood forests around the world. Since the other hardwood forests were warmed naturally, it appears that for soil respiration, warming the soil with buried heating cables differs little from natural, aboveground warming. By warming soil beyond the range of natural variability, a multi-site, long-term soil warming experiment may be valuable in helping us understand how ecosystems will respond to global warming.