Transient Effects of Snow Cover Duration on Primary Growth and Leaf Traits in a Tundra Shrub
With the recent climate warming, tundra ecotones are facing a progressive acceleration of spring snowpack melting and extension of the growing season, with evident consequences to vegetation. Along with summer temperature, winter precipitation has been recently recognised as a crucial factor for tun...
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ftzenodo:oai:zenodo.org:7610908 2024-09-15T18:39:37+00:00 Transient Effects of Snow Cover Duration on Primary Growth and Leaf Traits in a Tundra Shrub Unterholzner, Lucrezia Prendin, Angela Luisa Dibona, Raffaella Menardi, Roberto Casolo, Valentino Gargiulo, Sara Boscutti, Francesco Carrer, Marco 2022-04-05 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.822901 eng eng Zenodo https://zenodo.org/communities/eu https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.822901 oai:zenodo.org:7610908 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode snowmelt alpine tundra shrub phenology Juniperus communis leaf traits non-structural carbohydrates primary growth climate change info:eu-repo/semantics/article 2022 ftzenodo https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.822901 2024-07-26T08:37:51Z With the recent climate warming, tundra ecotones are facing a progressive acceleration of spring snowpack melting and extension of the growing season, with evident consequences to vegetation. Along with summer temperature, winter precipitation has been recently recognised as a crucial factor for tundra shrub growth and physiology. However, gaps of knowledge still exist on long-living plant responses to different snowpack duration, especially on how intra-specific and year-to-year variability together with multiple functional trait adjustments could influence the long-term responses. To fill this gap, we conducted a 3 years snow manipulation experiment above the Alpine treeline on the typical tundra species Juniperus communis , the conifer with the widest distributional range in the north emisphere. We tested shoot elongation, leaf area, stomatal density, leaf dry weight and leaf non-structural carbohydrate content of plants subjected to anticipated, natural and postponed snowpack duration. Anticipated snowpack melting enhanced new shoot elongation and increased stomatal density. However, plants under prolonged snow cover seemed to compensate for the shorter growing period, likely increasing carbon allocation to growth. In fact, these latter showed larger needles and low starch content at the beginning of the growing season. Variability between treatments slightly decreased over time, suggesting a progressive acclimation of juniper to new conditions. In the context of future warming scenarios, our results support the hypothesis of shrub biomass increase within the tundra biome. Yet, the picture is still far from being complete and further research should focus on transient and fading effects of changing conditions in the long term. Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action. Uncovering the anatomical archive of annual RINGS to understand abiotic and biotic drivers of SHRUB growth at the range BORDER (BoRiS). Grant agreement no. 895233 Article in Journal/Newspaper Tundra Zenodo Frontiers in Plant Science 13 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Zenodo |
op_collection_id |
ftzenodo |
language |
English |
topic |
snowmelt alpine tundra shrub phenology Juniperus communis leaf traits non-structural carbohydrates primary growth climate change |
spellingShingle |
snowmelt alpine tundra shrub phenology Juniperus communis leaf traits non-structural carbohydrates primary growth climate change Unterholzner, Lucrezia Prendin, Angela Luisa Dibona, Raffaella Menardi, Roberto Casolo, Valentino Gargiulo, Sara Boscutti, Francesco Carrer, Marco Transient Effects of Snow Cover Duration on Primary Growth and Leaf Traits in a Tundra Shrub |
topic_facet |
snowmelt alpine tundra shrub phenology Juniperus communis leaf traits non-structural carbohydrates primary growth climate change |
description |
With the recent climate warming, tundra ecotones are facing a progressive acceleration of spring snowpack melting and extension of the growing season, with evident consequences to vegetation. Along with summer temperature, winter precipitation has been recently recognised as a crucial factor for tundra shrub growth and physiology. However, gaps of knowledge still exist on long-living plant responses to different snowpack duration, especially on how intra-specific and year-to-year variability together with multiple functional trait adjustments could influence the long-term responses. To fill this gap, we conducted a 3 years snow manipulation experiment above the Alpine treeline on the typical tundra species Juniperus communis , the conifer with the widest distributional range in the north emisphere. We tested shoot elongation, leaf area, stomatal density, leaf dry weight and leaf non-structural carbohydrate content of plants subjected to anticipated, natural and postponed snowpack duration. Anticipated snowpack melting enhanced new shoot elongation and increased stomatal density. However, plants under prolonged snow cover seemed to compensate for the shorter growing period, likely increasing carbon allocation to growth. In fact, these latter showed larger needles and low starch content at the beginning of the growing season. Variability between treatments slightly decreased over time, suggesting a progressive acclimation of juniper to new conditions. In the context of future warming scenarios, our results support the hypothesis of shrub biomass increase within the tundra biome. Yet, the picture is still far from being complete and further research should focus on transient and fading effects of changing conditions in the long term. Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action. Uncovering the anatomical archive of annual RINGS to understand abiotic and biotic drivers of SHRUB growth at the range BORDER (BoRiS). Grant agreement no. 895233 |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Unterholzner, Lucrezia Prendin, Angela Luisa Dibona, Raffaella Menardi, Roberto Casolo, Valentino Gargiulo, Sara Boscutti, Francesco Carrer, Marco |
author_facet |
Unterholzner, Lucrezia Prendin, Angela Luisa Dibona, Raffaella Menardi, Roberto Casolo, Valentino Gargiulo, Sara Boscutti, Francesco Carrer, Marco |
author_sort |
Unterholzner, Lucrezia |
title |
Transient Effects of Snow Cover Duration on Primary Growth and Leaf Traits in a Tundra Shrub |
title_short |
Transient Effects of Snow Cover Duration on Primary Growth and Leaf Traits in a Tundra Shrub |
title_full |
Transient Effects of Snow Cover Duration on Primary Growth and Leaf Traits in a Tundra Shrub |
title_fullStr |
Transient Effects of Snow Cover Duration on Primary Growth and Leaf Traits in a Tundra Shrub |
title_full_unstemmed |
Transient Effects of Snow Cover Duration on Primary Growth and Leaf Traits in a Tundra Shrub |
title_sort |
transient effects of snow cover duration on primary growth and leaf traits in a tundra shrub |
publisher |
Zenodo |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.822901 |
genre |
Tundra |
genre_facet |
Tundra |
op_relation |
https://zenodo.org/communities/eu https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.822901 oai:zenodo.org:7610908 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.822901 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Plant Science |
container_volume |
13 |
_version_ |
1810483969138884608 |