Source vs sink limitations on tree growth: from physiological mechanisms to evolutionary constraints and terrestrial carbon cycle implications

Abstract

The potential for widespread sink-limited plant growth has received increasing attention in the literature in the past few years. Despite recent evidence for sink limitations to plant growth, there are reasons to be cautious about a sink-limited world view. First, source-limited vegetation models do a reasonable job at capturing geographic patterns in plant productivity and responses to resource limitations. Second, from an evolutionary perspective, it is nonadaptive for plants to invest in increasing carbon assimilation if growth is primarily sink-limited. In this review, we synthesize the potential evidence for and underlying physiology of sink limitation across terrestrial ecosystems and contrast mechanisms of sink limitation with those of source-limited productivity. We highlight evolutionary restrictions on the magnitude of sink limitation at the organismal level. We also detail where mechanisms regulating sink limitation at the organismal and ecosystem scale (e.g. the terrestrial carbon sink) diverge. Although we find that there is currently no direct evidence for widespread organismal sink limitation, we propose a series of follow-up growth chamber manipulations, systematized measurements, and modeling experiments targeted at diagnosing nonadaptive buildup of excess nonstructural carbohydrates that will help illuminate the prevalence and magnitude of organismal sink limitation.