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Photosynthetically distinct responses of an early-successional tree, Betula ermanii, following a defoliating disturbance: observational results of a manipulated typhoon-mimic experiment

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Abstract

Key message

The recovery of leaf photosynthetic rate of an early successional tree, Betula ermanii, to its pre-disturbance state following a defoliating disturbance was brought about by its fast leaf morphological response (LMA, leaf mass per area) but not physiological one (leaf N) as a resilience mechanism.

Abstract

Climate extremes possibly impair terrestrial vegetation and alter carbon cycles. Meanwhile, large uncertainty remains for evaluating the climatic impact on the vegetational function and structure and ecosystem CO2 exchange. We manipulated a defoliating disturbance experimentally in early September 2011 to simulate an extreme typhoon that actually hit a cool-temperate forest in Japan and ripped away a tremendous amount of foliage of early-successional B. ermanii trees in early September 2004, which corresponded to a decrease in plant area index (PAI) by 1.7 m2 m−2 from 3.3 m2 m−2 of the maximum PAI during the plant growth period. Over the 4-year observations in 2011–2016, we measured leaf-level photosynthesis following the manipulated disturbance. The highest maximum photosynthetic rate of leaves (Amax) occurred in 2014 among the observational period, which was the third year after the disturbance, and the subsequent Amax returned to the pre-disturbance state. We examined what biotic factors regulated Amax following the disturbance and found that the increase in the morphological attribute of leaf mass per area (LMA) enhanced Amax with a significant positive slope between LMA and Amax (R2 = 0.14 and p < 0.1). Meanwhile, Amax was hardly affected by the physiological attribute of leaf nitrogen (N) as indicated by a nonsignificant slope of the leaf N–Amax relationship (R2 = 0.04 and p = 0.281) throughout the observational period. This study would be a first challenge of a stand-scale defoliation experiment and provides a possible ecological inference regarding the functional and structural responses of early-successional trees following such disturbances.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Takashi Kohyama and Takayuki Nakatsubo for their observational support to the present research. We appreciate Moe Wakatsuchi for her helpful support for drawing a figure. We acknowledge Moshiri Experimental Forest staff for their support for operating the field observation.

Funding

Partial financial support was given by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) (16K00515) to one of the authors (MT) funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. This research was partly supported by the Integrated Research Program for Advancing Climate Models (TOUGOU program) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Biosphere Science, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, 739-8521, Japan

    Motomu Toda, Xin Wang & Kazuki Doi

  2. Field Science Center for Northern Biosphere, Hokkaido University, Otoineppu, 098-2501, Japan

    Karibu Fukuzawa

  3. Field Science Center for Northern Biosphere, Hokkaido University, Kozagawa, 649-4563, Japan

    Masahiro Nakamura

  4. Kobe College Junior and Senior High School, Nishinomiya, 662-8505, Japan

    Rie Miyata

  5. Environmental Biology Division, Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0819, Japan

    Azusa Tabata & Toshihiko Hara

  6. Field Science Center for Northern Biosphere, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0809, Japan

    Hideaki Shibata

  7. Field Science Center for Northern Biosphere, Hokkaido University, Horokanai, 074-0741, Japan

    Toshiya Yoshida

Authors
  1. Motomu Toda
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  2. Karibu Fukuzawa
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  3. Masahiro Nakamura
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  5. Xin Wang
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  6. Kazuki Doi
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  7. Azusa Tabata
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  8. Hideaki Shibata
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  9. Toshiya Yoshida
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  10. Toshihiko Hara
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Correspondence to Motomu Toda.

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Toda, M., Fukuzawa, K., Nakamura, M. et al. Photosynthetically distinct responses of an early-successional tree, Betula ermanii, following a defoliating disturbance: observational results of a manipulated typhoon-mimic experiment. Trees 32, 1789–1799 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-018-1770-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-018-1770-4

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