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Plant responses to past concentrations of CO2

  • Ecophysiological and Ecosystem Responses: Effects of CO2 Enrichment on Growth and Production
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Abstract

The influence of recent historical changes in atmospheric CO2 have been investigated by two methods: 1, the responses of leaf development and physiology as indicated by leaves stored in herbaria and 2, by investigating the differential growth responses of populations originating from naturally different CO2 concentrations. Herbarium leaves indicate that stomatal density and leaf nitrogen have decreased over the last 150 to 200 years, while water use efficiency, estimated from leaf δ13C and historical measurements of climate, has increased.

Natural populations ofBoehmeria cylindrica were found growing at sites, in Florida, with CO2 mole fractions varying naturally from 350 µmol mol-1 to 505 µmol mol-1. Plants were grown in the controlled environment, using seeds originating from populations occurring in the different CO2 mole fractions. Plants from the different ambient CO2 mole fractions showed different rates of growth and different non-linear responses of the shoot to root ratio in response to changes in the CO2 mole fraction from 350 to 675 µmol mol-1.

The proposal that plants originating from high altitude will whow greater stimulations of growth with an increase in CO2, than plants from low altitude, was rejected in experiments which simulated the atmospheric pressure at altitudes of 0 and 2000m, at CO2 mole fractions of 350 and 700 µmol mol-1 and on populations ofPlantago major originating from altitudes of 0 and 3335 m.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, S10 2TN, Sheffield, UK

    F. I. Woodward

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  1. F. I. Woodward
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Woodward, F.I. Plant responses to past concentrations of CO2 . Vegetatio 104, 145–155 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00048150

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