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Variations in trade-off of carbon storage and growth in subalpine larch across an elevational gradient

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A ratio of storage to growth of at least 8.4 and a balanced storage-growth relationship might be essential for subalpine larch trees to persist at the treeline.

Abstract

Cold-adapted trees display acclimation in trade-off of carbon storage and growth under cold stress at their upper elevational range limits. However, two prevailing hypotheses (growth/sink limitation hypothesis and carbon/source limitation hypothesis) based on carbon supply-demand balance are highly controversial and cannot yet provide a broad explanation for the formation of alpine treeline. Here, to probe into the physiological mechanism of treeline formation from carbon allocation, we examined the spatial dynamics of whole-tree mobile carbon pools and structural growth of the deciduous treeline tree species Larix chinensis along an elevational gradient in the Qinling Mountains of north-central China. Our results showed that the whole-tree non-structural carbohydrates stock increased significantly while the structural growth decreased with the increase in elevation. The ratio of carbon storage to structural growth increased with the increase in elevation, showing that it was highest at a ratio of 8.4 at the treeline site at the end of growing season. Such variations of storage-growth ratio might be attributable to the trade-off of carbon allocation and tree survival, which changed along elevation due to different intensity of cold stress. Thus, we concluded that a ratio of storage to growth of at least 8.4 might be essential for subalpine larch trees to persist at their low-temperature edge. Therefore, a sufficient carbon storage-growth ratio and a balanced storage-growth relationship might be required for subalpine larch trees to survive and develop in the altitudinal treeline ecotone.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31971491, 31770517), the Biodiversity Survey and Assessment Project of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China (2019HJ2096001006).

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  1. Rui He and Quan Zhou contributed equally to the work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Aquatic Botany and Watershed Ecology, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, People’s Republic of China

    Rui He, Quan Zhou, Hang Shi, Haikun Liu, Wenting Zhu, Dongyue Yu, Quanfa Zhang & Haishan Dang

  2. Center for Plant Ecology, Core Botanical Gardens, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, People’s Republic of China

    Rui He, Quan Zhou, Hang Shi, Haikun Liu, Wenting Zhu, Dongyue Yu, Quanfa Zhang & Haishan Dang

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, People’s Republic of China

    Rui He, Quan Zhou, Hang Shi, Haikun Liu & Dongyue Yu

  4. College of Science, Tibet University, Lhasa, 850000, People’s Republic of China

    Wenting Zhu

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  1. Rui He
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Correspondence to Haishan Dang.

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He, R., Zhou, Q., Shi, H. et al. Variations in trade-off of carbon storage and growth in subalpine larch across an elevational gradient. Trees 36, 1895–1907 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-022-02336-7

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