TY - JOUR
T1 - Internal physiological drivers of leaf development in trees
T2 - Understanding the relationship between non-structural carbohydrates and leaf phenology
AU - Luo, Yunpeng
AU - Zohner, Constantin
AU - Crowther, Thomas W.
AU - Feng, Jianlan
AU - Hoch, Günter
AU - Li, Peng
AU - Richardson, Andrew D.
AU - Vitasse, Yann
AU - Gessler, Arthur
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s). Functional Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Plant phenology is crucial for understanding plant growth and climate feedback. It affects canopy structure, surface albedo, and carbon and water fluxes. While the influence of environmental factors on phenology is well-documented, the role of plant intrinsic factors, particularly internal physiological processes and their interaction with external conditions, has received less attention. Non-structural carbohydrates (NSC), which include sugars and starch essential for growth, metabolism and osmotic regulation, serve as indicators of carbon availability in plants. NSC levels reflect the carbon balance between photosynthesis (source activity) and the demands of growth and respiration (sink activity), making them key physiological traits that potentially influence phenology during critical periods such as spring leaf-out and autumn leaf senescence. However, the connections between NSC concentrations in various organs and phenological events are poorly understood. This review synthesizes current research on the relationship between leaf phenology and NSC dynamics. We qualitatively delineate seasonal NSC variations in deciduous and evergreen trees and propose testable hypotheses about how NSC may interact with phenological stages such as bud break and leaf senescence. We also discuss how seasonal variations in NSC levels, align with existing conceptual models of carbon allocation. Accurate characterization and simulation of NSC dynamics are crucial and should be incorporated into carbon allocation models. By comparing and reviewing the development of carbon allocation models, we highlight the shortcomings in current methodologies and recommend directions to address these gaps in future research. Understanding the relationship between NSC, source–sink relationships, and leaf phenology poses challenges due to the difficulty of characterizing NSC dynamics with high temporal resolution. We advocate for a multi-scale approach that combines various methods, which include deepening our mechanistic understanding through manipulative experiments, integrating carbon sink and source data from multiple observational networks with carbon allocation models to better characterize the NSC dynamics, and quantifying the spatial pattern and temporal trends of the NSC-phenology relationship using remote sensing and modelling. This will enhance our comprehension of how NSC dynamics impact leaf phenology across different scales and environments. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
AB - Plant phenology is crucial for understanding plant growth and climate feedback. It affects canopy structure, surface albedo, and carbon and water fluxes. While the influence of environmental factors on phenology is well-documented, the role of plant intrinsic factors, particularly internal physiological processes and their interaction with external conditions, has received less attention. Non-structural carbohydrates (NSC), which include sugars and starch essential for growth, metabolism and osmotic regulation, serve as indicators of carbon availability in plants. NSC levels reflect the carbon balance between photosynthesis (source activity) and the demands of growth and respiration (sink activity), making them key physiological traits that potentially influence phenology during critical periods such as spring leaf-out and autumn leaf senescence. However, the connections between NSC concentrations in various organs and phenological events are poorly understood. This review synthesizes current research on the relationship between leaf phenology and NSC dynamics. We qualitatively delineate seasonal NSC variations in deciduous and evergreen trees and propose testable hypotheses about how NSC may interact with phenological stages such as bud break and leaf senescence. We also discuss how seasonal variations in NSC levels, align with existing conceptual models of carbon allocation. Accurate characterization and simulation of NSC dynamics are crucial and should be incorporated into carbon allocation models. By comparing and reviewing the development of carbon allocation models, we highlight the shortcomings in current methodologies and recommend directions to address these gaps in future research. Understanding the relationship between NSC, source–sink relationships, and leaf phenology poses challenges due to the difficulty of characterizing NSC dynamics with high temporal resolution. We advocate for a multi-scale approach that combines various methods, which include deepening our mechanistic understanding through manipulative experiments, integrating carbon sink and source data from multiple observational networks with carbon allocation models to better characterize the NSC dynamics, and quantifying the spatial pattern and temporal trends of the NSC-phenology relationship using remote sensing and modelling. This will enhance our comprehension of how NSC dynamics impact leaf phenology across different scales and environments. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
KW - carbon allocation
KW - carbon allocation modelling
KW - carbon sink-source activity
KW - leaf phenology
KW - non-structural carbon (NSC)
KW - starch and sugar
KW - tree
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85208646737&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85208646737&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/1365-2435.14694
DO - 10.1111/1365-2435.14694
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85208646737
SN - 0269-8463
JO - Functional Ecology
JF - Functional Ecology
ER -