Snowpack permanence shapes the growth and dynamic of non-structural carbohydrates in Juniperus communis in alpine tundra.

Autor: Gargiulo S; Department of Agricultural Food Environmental Animal Sciences, University of Udine, Udine, Italy; Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy. Electronic address: sara.gargiulo@phd.units.it., Boscutti F; Department of Agricultural Food Environmental Animal Sciences, University of Udine, Udine, Italy; NBFC, National Biodiversity Future Center, 90133 Palermo, Italy., Carrer M; Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padua, Italy., Prendin AL; Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padua, Italy; Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of Biology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark., Unterholzner L; Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padua, Italy., Dibona R; Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padua, Italy., Casolo V; Department of Agricultural Food Environmental Animal Sciences, University of Udine, Udine, Italy.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: The Science of the total environment [Sci Total Environ] 2024 Oct 20; Vol. 948, pp. 174891. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Jul 22.
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.174891
Abstrakt: Climate warming is altering snowpack permanence in alpine tundra, modifying shrub growth and distribution. Plant acclimation to snowpack changes depends on the capability to guarantee growth and carbon storage, suggesting that the content of non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) in plant organs can be a key trait to depict the plant response under different snow regimes. To test this hypothesis, we designed a 3-years long manipulative experiment aimed at evaluating the effect of snow melt timing (i.e., early, control, and late) on NSC content in needles, bark and wood of Juniperus communis L. growing at high elevation in the Alps. Starch evidenced a general decrease from late spring to summer in control and early melting, while starch was low but stable in plants subjected to a late snow melt. Leaves, bark and wood have different level of soluble NSC changing during growing season: in bark, sugars content decreased significantly in late summer, while there was no seasonal effect in needles and wood. Soluble NSC and starch were differently related with the plant growth, when considering different tissues and snow treatment. In leaf and bark we observed a starch depletion in control and early melting plants, consistently to a higher growth (i.e., twig elongation), while in late snow melt, we did not find any significant relationship between growth and NSC concentration. Our findings confirmed that snowpack duration affects the onset of the growing season promoting a change in carbon allocation in plant organs and, between bark and wood in twigs. Finally, our results suggest that plants, at this elevation, could take advantage from an early snow melt caused by climate warming, most likely due to photosynthetic activity by maintaining the level of reserves and enhancing the carbon investment for growth.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
(Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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