title: Global convergence in leaf respiration from estimates of thermal acclimation across time and space.
abstract: Recent compilations of experimental and observational data have documented global temperature-dependent patterns of variation in leaf dark respiration (R), but it remains unclear whether local adjustments in respiration over time (through thermal acclimation) are consistent with the patterns in R found across geographical temperature gradients. We integrated results from two global empirical syntheses into a simple temperature-dependent respiration framework to compare the measured effects of respiration acclimation-over-time and variation-across-space to one another, and to a null model in which acclimation is ignored. Using these models, we projected the influence of thermal acclimation on: seasonal variation in R; spatial variation in mean annual R across a global temperature gradient; and future increases in R under climate change. The measured strength of acclimation-over-time produces differences in annual R across spatial temperature gradients that agree well with global variation-across-space. Our models further project that acclimation effects could potentially halve increases in R (compared with the null model) as the climate warms over the 21st Century. Convergence in global temperature-dependent patterns of R indicates that physiological adjustments arising from thermal acclimation are capable of explaining observed variation in leaf respiration at ambient growth temperatures across the globe.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Regina, Regina, SK, S4S 0A2, Canada.|Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA.
authors.forename: Mark C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Vanderwel
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA.|Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Box 0843-03092, Balboa, Panama.
authors.forename: Martijn
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Slot
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA.
authors.forename: Jeremy W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Lichstein
authors.affiliation: Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St Paul, MN, 55108, USA.|Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, University of Western Sydney, Penrith, NSW, 2751, Australia.
authors.forename: Peter B
authors.initials: PB
authors.lastname: Reich
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Hans Knoell Str. 10, 07745, Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kattge
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, Research School of Biology, Australia National University, Building 134, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Owen K
authors.initials: OK
authors.lastname: Atkin
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, Research School of Biology, Australia National University, Building 134, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Keith J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Bloomfield
authors.affiliation: Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, University of Western Sydney, Penrith, NSW, 2751, Australia.
authors.forename: Mark G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Tjoelker
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA.|Division of Forest and Biomaterial Science, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa Oiwake-Cho, Kyoto, 606-8502, Japan.
authors.forename: Kaoru
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kitajima
mesh_terms: D000064:Acclimatization / Q000502:physiology*; D019069:Cell Respiration / Q000502:physiology; D003198:Computer Simulation; D008954:Models, Biological; D018515:Plant Leaves / Q000502:physiology*; D013696:Temperature; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: autotrophic respiration; carbon flux; climate change; temperature; terrestrial biosphere modelling; thermal acclimation