POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF ELEVATED CO2 AND CHANGES IN TEMPERATURE ON TROPICAL PLANTS

Very little attention has been directed at the responses of tropical plants to increases in global atmospheric CO2 concentrations and the potential climatic changes. The available data, from greenhouse and laboratory studies, indicate that the photosynthesis, growth and water use efficiency of tropical plants can increase at higher CO2 Concentrations. However, under field conditions abiotic (light, water or nutrients) or biotic (competition or herbivory) factors might limit these responses. In general, elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations seem to increase plant tolerance to stress, including low water availability, high or low temperature, and photoinhibition. Thus, some species may be able to extend their ranges into physically less favourable sites, and biological interactions may become relatively more important in determining the distribution and abundance of species. Tropical plants may be more narrowly adapted to prevailing temperature regimes than are temperate plants, so expected changes in temperature might be relatively more important in the tropics. Reduced transpiration due to decreased stomatal conductance could modify the effects of water stress as a cue for vegetative or reproductive phenology of plants of seasonal tropical areas. The available information suggests that changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations could affect processes as varied as plant/herbivore interactions, decomposition and nutrient cycling, local and geographic distributions of species and community types, and ecosystem productivity. However, data on tropical plants are few, and there seem to be no published tropical studies carried out in the field. Immediate steps should be undertaken to reduce our ignorance of this critical area.