Climate-smart forests and agriculture: patterns and diversity of tree and crop responses to elevated growth temperatures

气候变暖是对粮食安全和森林提供我们社会所依赖的经济和生态效益的能力的紧迫威胁。但目前尚不清楚为什么一些植物物种在较高的生长温度下保持吸收碳的能力并有效生长，而其他物种则受到变暖的负面影响。这项研究计划将评估温暖的生长条件如何影响影响碳通量（光合作用和呼吸作用）和经济上重要的树木和作物物种以及模式物种的生长特征。通过使用在温暖生长温度下维持光合作用和呼吸能力不同的物种，这项工作将有助于确定与未来温暖气候下的表现相关的解剖、生化和生理特征，从而为创造气候智能型作物品种和树系提供目标，这些品种和树系可以更好地耐受未来气候。此外，由于对未来气候下作物产量和森林生长的预测取决于我们对植物生产力背后的生理过程进行建模的能力，这项工作将为建模者提供关于温暖生长的植物与在当前温度下生长的植物有何不同的关键信息，从而改进这些模型。最后，本研究计划将评估叶片性状，如氮浓度或密度/厚度，是否与在温暖生长条件下保持性能的能力相关。如果是这样，那么这些信息可以被纳入大型模型，以帮助预测各种植物将如何应对气候变暖。由于叶片碳通量在确定大气二氧化碳浓度方面起着重要作用，因此了解变暖如何影响光合作用和呼吸作用不仅对确定未来的食物、木材和纤维供应至关重要，而且对预测气候变化的速度也至关重要。拟议的工作将为10名学生提供分析和沟通技巧方面的关键培训，同时提供解决这些复杂环境问题的国际方法，从而为他们从事工业、政策和学术界的职业做好准备。

Climate warming is a pressing threat to food security and the ability of our forests to provide the economic and ecological benefits our society relies on. But it is unclear why some plant species maintain their ability to uptake carbon and grow efficiently at elevated growth temperatures, while other species are negatively impacted by warming. This research program will assess how warm growing conditions impact traits that affect carbon fluxes (photosynthesis and respiration) and growth in economically important tree and crop species, as well as in a model species. By using species that differ in their ability to maintain photosynthesis and respiration under warm growth temperatures, this work will help identify the anatomical, biochemical and physiological traits that correlate with performance in future, warmer climates, thus providing targets for creating climate-smart crop varieties and tree lines that can better tolerate future climates. Additionally, because predictions of crop yield and forest growth in future climates depend on our ability to model the physiological processes underlying plant productivity, this work will provide critical information for modelers about how warm-grown plants differ from those grown under current temperatures, thus improving these models. Lastly, this research program will evaluate whether leaf traits, such as nitrogen concentration or density/thickness, correlate with the ability to maintain performance in warmer growth conditions. If so, then this information can be incorporated into large-scale models to help predict how a wide range of plants will cope with climate warming. Since leaf carbon fluxes play an important role in determining atmospheric CO2 concentrations, understanding how warming impacts photosynthesis and respiration is critical not only for determining future food, wood and fibre supplies, but also for predicting how rapidly our climate will change. The proposed work will provide critical training in analytical and communication skills for ten students, along with an international approach to solving these complex environmental problems, thus preparing them for careers in industry, policy and academia.