Category: field work

The spectral composition of light in a forest gap and understorey through the year affects the rate of photodegradation of senescent leaf litter material across a variety of native plant species. This finding that photodegradation plays an important role in forest litter decomposition  could partially explain the hole in the carbon budget in this ecosystem.

Wang QW, Pieristè M, Kenta T, Liu C, Robson TM^†, Kurokawa H^† (2020) Photodegradation enhances litter decomposition modulated with canopy openness in a temperate forest. New Phytologist. NPH17022 https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.17022

Enhanced decomposition can occur through direct photochemical mineralisation, but in temperate forests effects of increased temperature and the availability of substrates for microbial decompositions can be even more important. These research supports findings of our meta-analysis, that actions of photofacilitation are highly wavelength dependent and the subtilties of these responses can only be identified through very large scale experimental manipulations of sunlight, as was done in this ambitious experiment.

Wang Q-W, Robson TM, Pieristè M, Kenta T, Kurokawa H. (2022) Photodegradation dynamics below a forest canopy. Science of the Total Environment 820 153185. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153185

Wang Q-W*, Pieristè M*, Kotilainen TK, Forey E, Chauvat M, Kurokawa H, Robson TM, Jones AG. (2022) The crucial role of blue light as a driver of litter photodegradation in terrestrial ecosystems.  Plant & Soil,  http://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05596-x

The rate of decomposition of leaf litter on the forest floor controls the thickness of the litter layer and nutrient recycling within the ecosystem. Decomposition is well known to depend on moisture and temperature which hasten both the microbial and non-microbial breakdown of leaves following their autumn senescence.

In this paper, just accepted in Plant Physiology and Biochemistry we test the extent to which light plays a role in the decomposition of autumn leaves. Photodegradation, the process by which sunlight accelerates decomposition, has typically been considered important only in dry environments. However, Santa Neimane and Marta Pieristè found in this experiment that it can also participate in decomposition during winter and spring prior to forest canopy closure.

The paper also considers how photodegradation acts on leaves of silver birch and European beech. Using spectrally selective filters over leaf litter in the understorey of different stands in Viikki arboretum and under controlled conditions, the distinct roles of UV radiation and of blue light, which facilitates microbial colonisation could be identified.

The experiment also exploited natural UV filters found in the epidermis of leaves as a means to see whether screening UV-radiation from the mesophyll when leaves are orientated with their upper-face upwards would affect the rate of photodegradation.

This research formed part of Santa Neimane’s undergraduate thesis on Erasmus exchange in Helsinki. It complements the subsequent long-term study of decomposition in a temperate beech forest published this summer, Pieristè et al. 2019, which considers the dynamics of photodegradation in leaves of tree species spanning a continuum of succession.

Read more in the papers:

Pieristè^† M, Neimane^† S, Nybakken L, Solanki T, Jones AG, S, Forey E, Chauvat M, Ņečajeva J, Robson TM. (2020) Ultraviolet radiation accelerates photodegradation under controlled conditions but slows the decomposition of leaf litter from forest stands in southern Finland. Accepted in Plant Physiology and Biochemistry. PLAPHY5920. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plaphy.2019.11.005

Pieristè M, Chauvat M, Kotilainen TK, Jones AG, Aubert M, Robson TM, Forey E. (2019) Solar UV-A radiation and blue light enhance tree leaf litter decomposition in a temperate forest by accelerating photodegradation rate. Oecologia, 191(1), 191-203. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-019-04478-x

A quick start to the growing season for plants emerging from the snowpack can provide them with a fitness dividend in locations where the summer is short.

In our latest paper, Transmission of ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared solar radiation to plants within a seasonal snow pack, just out in a Special Issue of PPS devoted to plant UV responses, we measured how much sunlight plants receive under snow and how the properties of the snowpack affect the irradiance spectrum.

Changes in the spectral composition of light under the snowpack may help plants perceive the onset of spring and physiologically prepare for exposure to the full sunlight and cold temperatures they will experience once they emerge.

In Arctic and alpine environments warming temperatures are expected to result in longer growing seasons and to encourage growth, but snow will melt faster and more will fall as rain. This means that the protective winter blanket of snow cover may no longer be present to hide plants from the extremes of cold that periodically occur. Whether plants can overcome this paradox to benefit from the increased sunlight and warmth above the snow, while resisting the greater fluctuations in temperature, will depend on their physiological capacity to cope with the changing conditions.

Is the paper, Solanki et al., 2018, published in a special issue of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry on UV-cross protection, we explore the ecophysiological response of Vaccinium hummocks to snow cover over the course of a year in central Finland.

We focus on the role played by UV-absorbing compounds in protection against high light and low temperature combinations as shoots emerge from under snow in the early spring.

Solanki T. et al., 2018 UV-screening and springtime recovery of photosynthetic capacity in leaves of Vaccinium vitis-idaea above and below the snow pack Plant Physiology and Biochemistry.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plaphy.2018.09.003

Complex trade-offs in allocation to growth can determine the success of oak species where their ranges overlap.

This is highlighted by our paper Ramírez-Valiente et al., (2018), where higher root investment under seasonal drought by cork oak gave it an advantage over Holm oak, despite our prior expectations that the latter species is more drought tolerant.

José-Alberto Ramírez-Valiente, Ismael Aranda, David Sanchéz-Gómez, Jesús Rodríguez-Calcerrada, Fernando Valladares, T Matthew Robson; Increased root investment can explain the higher survival of seedlings of ‘mesic’ Quercus suber than ‘xeric’ Quercus ilex in sandy soils during a summer drought, Tree Physiology, , tpy084, https://doi.org/10.1093/treephys/tpy084