Non-structural carbohydrates mediate seasonal water stress across Amazon forests

Abstract

Non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) are major substrates for plant metabolism and have been implicated in mediating drought-induced tree mortality. Despite their significance, NSC dynamics in tropical forests remain little studied. We present leaf and branch NSC data for 82 Amazon canopy tree species in six sites spanning a broad precipitation gradient. During the wet season, total NSC (NSCT) concentrations in both organs were remarkably similar across communities. However, NSCT and its soluble sugar (SS) and starch components varied much more across sites during the dry season. Notably, the proportion of leaf NSCT in the form of SS (SS:NSCT) increased greatly in the dry season in almost all species in the driest sites, implying an important role of SS in mediating water stress in these sites. This adjustment of leaf NSC balance was not observed in tree species less-adapted to water deficit, even under exceptionally dry conditions. Thus, leaf carbon metabolism may help to explain floristic sorting across water availability gradients in Amazonia and enable better prediction of forest responses to future climate change.

Metadata

Authors/Creators:

Signori-Müller, C
Oliveira, RS
de Vasconcellos Barros, F
Tavares, JV
Gilpin, M https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5539-8277
Diniz, FC
Marca Zevallos, MJ
Yupayccana, CAS
Acosta, M
Bacca, J
Cruz Chino, RS
Aramayo Cuellar, GM
Cumapa, ERM
Martinez, F
Pérez Mullisaca, FM
Nina, A
Bañon Sanchez, JM
Fernandes da Silva, L
Tello, L
Sanchez Tintaya, J
Martinez Ugarteche, MT
Baker, TR https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3251-1679
Bittencourt, PRL
Borma, LS
Brum, M
Castro, W
Honorio Coronado, EN
Cosio, EG
Feldpausch, TR
d'Agosto Miguel Fonseca, L
Gloor, E
Flores Llampazo, G
Malhi, Y
Monteagudo Mendoza, A
Chama Moscoso, V
Araujo-Murakami, A
Phillips, OL https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8993-6168
Salinas, N
Silveira, M
Talbot, J https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6520-4560
Vasquez, R
Mencuccini, M
Galbraith, D https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5555-4823

© The Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Keywords:

Ecophysiology; Forest ecology; Natural variation in plants; Plant stress responses; Tropical ecology

Dates:

Accepted: 19 February 2021
Published (online): 19 April 2021
Published: 19 April 2021

Institution:

The University of Leeds

Academic Units:

The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > Institute for Transport Studies (Leeds) > ITS: Sustainable Transport Policy (Leeds)
The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds)

Funding Information:

Funder	Grant number
NERC (Natural Environment Research Council)	NE/N004655/1
NERC (Natural Environment Research Council)	NE/S011811/1
NERC (Natural Environment Research Council)	NE/F005806/1
Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation	N/A
EU - European Union	283080
EU - European Union	291585 (ERC 2011 ADG)