Linking leaf dark respiration to leaf traits and reflectance spectroscopy across diverse forest types

Fengqi Wu; Shuwen Liu; Julien Lamour; Owen K Atkin; Nan Yang; Tingting Dong; Weiying Xu; Nicholas G Smith; Zhihui Wang; Han Wang; Yanjun Su; Xiaojuan Liu; Yue Shi; Aijun Xing; Guanhua Dai; Jinlong Dong; Nathan G Swenson; Jens Kattge; Peter B Reich; Shawn P Serbin; Alistair Rogers; Jin Wu; Zhengbing Yan

doi:10.1111/nph.20267

Linking leaf dark respiration to leaf traits and reflectance spectroscopy across diverse forest types

New Phytol. 2024 Nov 19. doi: 10.1111/nph.20267. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Fengqi Wu^{1

2

3}, Shuwen Liu⁴, Julien Lamour⁵, Owen K Atkin⁶, Nan Yang^{1

2}, Tingting Dong^{1

2

3}, Weiying Xu^{1

2

3}, Nicholas G Smith⁷, Zhihui Wang⁸, Han Wang⁹, Yanjun Su^{1

2

3}, Xiaojuan Liu^{1

2

3}, Yue Shi^{1

2}, Aijun Xing^{1

2}, Guanhua Dai¹⁰, Jinlong Dong^{3

11

12}, Nathan G Swenson¹³, Jens Kattge^{14

15}, Peter B Reich^{16

17

18}, Shawn P Serbin¹⁹, Alistair Rogers²⁰, Jin Wu⁴, Zhengbing Yan^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiangshan, Beijing, 100093, China.
² China National Botanical Garden, Beijing, 100093, China.
³ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yuquanlu, Beijing, 100049, China.
⁴ Division for Ecology and Biodiversity, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 999077, China.
⁵ Centre de Recherche sur la Biodiversité et l'Environnement (CRBE), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, IRD, Toulouse INP, Université Toulouse 3 - Paul Sabatier (UT3), Toulouse, 31062, France.
⁶ Division of Plant Sciences, Research School of Biology, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
⁷ Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, 79409, USA.
⁸ Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System, Guangdong Open Laboratory of Geospatial Information Technology and Application, Guangzhou Institute of Geography, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510070, China.
⁹ Department of Earth System Science, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
¹⁰ Research Station of Changbai Mountain Forest Ecosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Antu, 133613, China.
¹¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla, Menglun, 666303, China.
¹² National Forest Ecosystem Research Station at Xishuangbanna, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla, Menglun, 666303, Yunnan, China.
¹³ Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556, USA.
¹⁴ Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Hans Knöll Str. 10, 07745, Jena, Germany.
¹⁵ iDiv - German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Puschstraße 4, 04103, Leipzig, Germany.
¹⁶ Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW, 2751, Australia.
¹⁷ Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St Paul, MN, 55108, USA.
¹⁸ Institute for Global Change Biology, and School for the Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA.
¹⁹ Biospheric Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, 20771, USA.
²⁰ Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.

PMID: 39558787
DOI: 10.1111/nph.20267

Abstract

Leaf dark respiration (R_dark), an important yet rarely quantified component of carbon cycling in forest ecosystems, is often simulated from leaf traits such as the maximum carboxylation capacity (V_cmax), leaf mass per area (LMA), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations, in terrestrial biosphere models. However, the validity of these relationships across forest types remains to be thoroughly assessed. Here, we analyzed R_dark variability and its associations with V_cmax and other leaf traits across three temperate, subtropical and tropical forests in China, evaluating the effectiveness of leaf spectroscopy as a superior monitoring alternative. We found that leaf magnesium and calcium concentrations were more significant in explaining cross-site R_dark than commonly used traits like LMA, N and P concentrations, but univariate trait-R_dark relationships were always weak (r² ≤ 0.15) and forest-specific. Although multivariate relationships of leaf traits improved the model performance, leaf spectroscopy outperformed trait-R_dark relationships, accurately predicted cross-site R_dark (r² = 0.65) and pinpointed the factors contributing to R_dark variability. Our findings reveal a few novel traits with greater cross-site scalability regarding R_dark, challenging the use of empirical trait-R_dark relationships in process models and emphasize the potential of leaf spectroscopy as a promising alternative for estimating R_dark, which could ultimately improve process modeling of terrestrial plant respiration.

Keywords: carbon cycling; gas exchange; leaf mitochondrial respiration; leaf spectroscopy; partial least squares regression; plant functional traits; transferability.

Abstract

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