Acclimation Unifies the Scaling of Carbon Assimilation Across Climate Gradients and Levels of Organisation

The temperature dependence of carbon assimilation—from leaf photosynthesis to ecosystem productivity—is hypothesised to be driven by the kinetics of Rubisco-catalysed carboxylation and electron transport. However, photosynthetic physiology acclimates to changes in temperature, which may decouple temperature dependencies at higher levels of organisation from the acute temperature sensitivity of photosynthesis. Here, we integrate relative growth rate theory, metabolic theory and biochemical photosynthesis theory to develop a carbon budget model of plant growth that accounts for photosynthetic acclimation to temperature. We test its predictions using a novel experimental approach enabling concurrent measurement of the temperature sensitivity of acute photosynthesis, acclimated photosynthesis and growth rate. We demonstrate for the first time that photosynthetic acclimation mediates how carbon assimilation kinetics ‘scale up’ from leaf photosynthesis to whole-plant growth. We also find that existing models of photosynthetic acclimation are unable to predict features of growth rate responses to temperature in our system.