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Black spruce family growth performance under ambient and elevated atmospheric CO2

Informally Refereed

Abstract

Abstract. Seedlings from 20 families of black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.), representing a large range in field productivity, were subjected to a greenhouse retrospective test under ambient (409 ppm – year 1, 384 ppm – year 2) and high (686 ppm – year 1, 711 ppm – year 2) atmospheric CO2 environments. After one and two growth cycles, seedling height and diameter growth significantly increased under elevated CO2. At the end of the experiment, seedlings grown under high CO2 had a mean above-ground dry weight of 48.77 g as compared to 26.36 g for seedlings grown under ambient atmospheric CO2. Families were a significant source of variation for all growth parameters. Although the family x CO2 environment interaction was not a statistically significant source of variation in the analysis of variance, the correlation between greenhouse and 15-year field height growth was weaker (r = 0.29, p = 0.2177) under elevated CO2 compared to ambient CO2 (r = 0.51, p = 0.0223) following the first growth cycle. However, following the second growth cycle, greenhouse-field correlations were similar between the two CO2 environments (ambient CO2: r = 0.55, p = 0.0115; elevated CO2: r = 0.56, p = 0.0101). Thus, with this set of families, growth performance ranking after two years appears relatively stable under ambient and elevated CO2.

Keywords

early selection, genotype x environment interaction, growth, retrospective, seedling

Citation

Johnsen, Kurt H.; Major, John E. 1998. Black spruce family growth performance under ambient and elevated atmospheric CO2. New Forests 15: 271–281
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/6203