Thermal acclimation of leaf photosynthetic traits in an evergreen woodland, consistent with the coordination hypothesis

Fürstenau Togashi, Henrique; Prentice, Iain Colin; Atkin, Owen K.; Macfarlane, Craig; Prober, Suzanne M.; Bloomfield, Keith J.; Evans, Bradley John

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-3461-2018

Articles | Volume 15, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-3461-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-3461-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 11

Research article

|

11 Jun 2018

Research article |

| 11 Jun 2018

Thermal acclimation of leaf photosynthetic traits in an evergreen woodland, consistent with the coordination hypothesis

Henrique Fürstenau Togashi, Iain Colin Prentice, Owen K. Atkin, Craig Macfarlane, Suzanne M. Prober, Keith J. Bloomfield, and Bradley John Evans

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Final revised paper (published on 11 Jun 2018)
Preprint (discussion started on 07 Nov 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Reviewer comment', Anonymous Referee #1, 04 Dec 2017
- AC1: 'Final response', Henrique Togashi, 02 Mar 2018
SC1: 'Peer Review', Ashehad Ali, 18 Dec 2017
RC2: 'Review of Thermal acclimation of leaf photosynthetic traits in an evergreen woodland, consistent with the co-ordination hypothesis', Anonymous Referee #2, 03 Jan 2018
- AC1: 'Final response', Henrique Togashi, 02 Mar 2018
RC3: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #3, 09 Jan 2018
- AC1: 'Final response', Henrique Togashi, 02 Mar 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (09 Mar 2018) by Sönke Zaehle

AR by Henrique Togashi on behalf of the Authors (07 Apr 2018)

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (16 Apr 2018) by Sönke Zaehle

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (01 May 2018)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (08 May 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

I would like to thank the authors for their detailed response to my comments. The only issue that I do not think has been addressed sufficiently is the definition and implications of the coordination hypothesis which lies at the basis of this paper. While the authors correctly say that the coordination hypothesis simply states that the two limiting rates of photosynthesis, Av and Aj should be equal, there are two opposing interpretations of this statement. The first one, which the authors also subscribe to, is that the Jmax/Vcmax ratio remains constant and the leaf N changes (Chen et al. 1993; Maire et al. 2012). The alternative is of course that the leaf N remains constant and the Jmax/Vcmax ratio varies (Ali et al. 2015; Medlyn 1996; Quebbeman and Ramirez 2016). These two contrasting approaches should be mentioned in the introduction and the methods and which of these the authors use in their model analysis.

As a side note, the (Dewar 1996) study which the authors mention in their reply, does indeed predict an optimal canopy nitrogen but does so using the maximum NPP hypothesis, which is distinct and must not be confused with the coordination hypothesis.
Ali, A. A., C. Xu, A. Rogers, R. A. Fisher, S. D. Wullschleger, N. G. McDowell, E. C. Massoud, et al. 2015. “A Global Scale Mechanistic Model of the Photosynthetic Capacity.” Geoscientific Model Development Discussions 8: 6217–66.
Chen, Jia-Lin, Jamesf Reynolds, Peterc Harley, and Johnd Tenhunen. 1993. “Coordination Theory of Leaf Nitrogen Distribution in a Canopy.” Oecologia 93 (1). Springer-Verlag: 63–69.
Dewar, Roderick C. 1996. “The Correlation between Plant Growth and Intercepted Radiation: An Interpretation in Terms of Optimal Plant Nitrogen Content.” Annals of Botany 78 (1). Oxford University Press: 125–36.
Maire, Vincent, Pierre Martre, Jens Kattge, Francois Gastal, Gerd Esser, Sebastien Fontaine, and Jean-Francois Soussana. 2012. “The Coordination of Leaf Photosynthesis Links C and N Fluxes in C3 Plant Species.” PloS One 7 (6). Public Library of Science: e38345.
Medlyn, B. E. 1996. “The Optimal Allocation of Nitrogen Within the C3 Photosynthetic System at Elevated CO2.” Functional Plant Biology: FPB 23 (5). CSIRO PUBLISHING: 593–603.
Quebbeman, J. A., and J. A. Ramirez. 2016. “Optimal Allocation of Leaf-Level Nitrogen: Implications for Covariation of V Cmax and J Max and Photosynthetic Downregulation : COVARIATION OF V Cmax AND J Max.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 121 (9): 2464–75.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (08 May 2018) by Sönke Zaehle

AR by Henrique Togashi on behalf of the Authors (09 May 2018)

ED: Publish as is (22 May 2018) by Sönke Zaehle

AR by Henrique Togashi on behalf of the Authors (30 May 2018)

Short summary

Ecosystem models commonly assume that photosynthetic traits, such as carboxylation capacity measured at a standard temperature, are constant in time and therefore do not acclimate. Optimality hypotheses suggest this assumption may be incorrect. We investigated acclimation by carrying out measurements on woody species during distinct seasons in Western Australia. Our study shows evidence that carboxylation capacity should acclimate so that it increases somewhat with growth temperature.