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Seasonal dynamics of photosynthetic nitrogen content and partitioning in deciduous forests

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Abstract

Nitrogen allocated to the photosynthetic apparatus and its partitioning into different photosynthetic components is crucial for understanding plant carbon gain and plant productivity. It is known that photosynthetic nitrogen content and partitioning are controlled by both environmental and vegetation factors and have versatile and dynamic responses. However, such responses are greatly simplified in most current gas exchange models, in which only a prescribed relationship is commonly applied to describe the effect of nitrogen on photosynthesis and with limited model performance. While within-canopy variation at a specific time in leaf photosynthetic nitrogen content and partitioning has been studied previously, far less attention has been paid to the seasonal dynamics of photosynthetic nitrogen content and partitioning, which is especially critical to deciduous forests. In this study, we integrated long-term field observations in deciduous forests in Japan to determine seasonal patterns of photosynthetic nitrogen content and partitioning (rubisco, electron transport, and light capture) and to examine how photosynthetic nitrogen content and partitioning varied seasonally in deciduous forest canopies growing at different altitudes. The results demonstrated that there were remarkable seasonal variations in both photosynthetic nitrogen content and partitioning in deciduous forests along the altitudinal gradient. Moreover, photosynthetic nitrogen use efficiency was well explained by nitrogen partitioning rather than total leaf nitrogen. These results suggest that seasonal patterns of nitrogen partitioning should be integrated into ecosystem models to accurately project emergent properties of ecosystem productivity on local, regional, and global scales.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the members of the Laboratory of Macroecology and the Institute of Silviculture, Shizuoka University, for their support of both fieldwork and laboratory analyses.

Funding

This research was partially supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) project (No. 21H02230).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Agriculture, Shizuoka University, Shizuoka, 422-8529, Japan

    Guangman Song & Quan Wang

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  1. Guangman Song
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QW conceptualized the study. GS analyzed and interpreted the data. GS and QW wrote and compiled the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Quan Wang.

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Song, G., Wang, Q. Seasonal dynamics of photosynthetic nitrogen content and partitioning in deciduous forests. Photosynth Res 156, 355–366 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-022-00992-x

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