Can tropical Montane forest Acclimate to high temperature? Montane-Acclim

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Tropical forests play a critical role in global water, carbon and nutrient cycles, and currently absorb billions of tonnes of carbon, thus reducing rates of climate change. For this reason, computer models that are used to predict future climate change and the impacts of climate on plants and ecosystems, need to be able to represent tropical forest very well. In fact, the response of tropical forests to changes in temperature is one of the greatest uncertainties in climate change prediction. However, currently, scientists do not understand how these forests will respond to increasing temperatures. This is worrying because temperatures are increasing faster today than in the past, forcing forests to respond to unprecedented rates of warming. Critically, the lack of seasonal changes in temperature may mean that trees growing in these regions have a reduced capacity to deal with rapid climate change compared with more temperate and high-latitude species. If this is the case, then global warming may represent a considerable threat to these forests, the amazing amounts of biodiversity that they contain, and their role in reducing current rates of climate change. However, this suggestion is yet to be tested formally.The lack of understanding is even more worrying for tropical forest growing in mountains, as in these areas temperatures are increasing faster than in the lowlands. For example, scientists studying Andean forest in Colombia and Peru have observed that some tree species native to high elevations are dying out while others are moving to higher elevations. These scientists have suggested that these observations may be explained by the fact that trees are already seeing the impacts of climate change and are not able to withstand current temperatures. However, this explanation remains controversial and has not been tested formally. The major goal of this project is to determine if tropical Andean species can tolerate current temperatures and adjust to withstand the higher temperatures expected for the future. To answer this question, we will plant trees from high elevations in the Colombian Andes in their home environment but also at two lower elevations where temperatures are 5oC and 9oC higher, respectively. Our trees will be all planted in common soils and will have access to plenty of water, eliminating potential differences in water and nutrient access. We will monitor photosynthesis, respiration and growth at the three locations in other to understand how they respond to temperature. Compared to other experiments, our study is unique as it will: i) be the first to investigate the ability of large 3 - 4m tall trees planted in a common soil to respond to long-term (3 year) changes in temperature, ii) investigate a much greater number of species than all other field studies on this subject, and iii) measure a more complete set of key physiological and growth responses than in any other experiment. The measurements taken will be used to the derive mathematical equations that can represent the response of these tree montane species to elevated temperatures. Furthermore, to predict the response of tropical forest everywhere in the world to higher temperatures, we need data from high and low elevations in as many locations as possible. Scientists around the world are now starting to collect some of these measurements in forests from Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Panama, Brazil, Peru, Rwanda and Australia. Although, no one of these investigations is as detailed as our study, by teaming up with all these groups we can use their data to test and extrapolate our equations across all tropics globally. We will then introduce these mathematical equations into a computer model to predict future behavior of the tropical forest under warming conditions. The outcome will represent a step change in our ability to accurately predict how this critically important biome will respond to global warming.