Cocozza Claudia, Traversi Maria Laura, Giovannelli Alessio
Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry, Via San Bonaventura 13, I-50145 Florence, Italy.
CNR-Institute of Research on Terrestrial Ecosystems, Via Madonna del Piano 10, I-50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy.
Plants (Basel). 2021 Sep 18;10(9):1943. doi: 10.3390/plants10091943.
The recent climate projections predict that the intensity and frequency of extreme events will increase as a result of overall increasing mean temperature and reduced precipitations in the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. How these changes will influence the harshness of the environment and the performances of trees growing under natural conditions remains an open question. In this commentary article, we would like to look at the concept of suboptimal growth conditions, widening its application from the traditional in vitro manipulation to trees growing in open air, addressing the main limitations and strengths of the upscaling results from cell to tree. We believe that the traditional single dose-effect approach is not suitable to explain the complex interactions between genotype and environment, occurring in open field or forest stands, where the intensity and frequency of the events are uncontrolled and unpredictable. As forests provide a wide range of ecosystem services, new parameters should be considered in the definition of the response thresholds in addition to growth. Thus, within this Special Issue, we stimulate the discussion over the development of new approaches and technologies that are able to define suitable threshold responses of trees under suboptimal natural conditions, with the aim to furnish new insights on the acclimation and adaptation processes in woody species under global change.
近期的气候预测表明，由于北半球温带地区平均气温总体上升和降水量减少，极端事件的强度和频率将会增加。这些变化将如何影响环境的严酷程度以及自然条件下树木的生长表现仍是一个悬而未决的问题。在这篇评论文章中，我们希望探讨次优生长条件的概念，将其应用范围从传统的体外操作扩展到露天生长的树木，讨论从细胞到树木的放大结果的主要局限性和优势。我们认为，传统的单剂量效应方法不适用于解释在野外或林分中发生的基因型与环境之间的复杂相互作用，因为这些地方事件的强度和频率是不受控制且不可预测的。由于森林提供了广泛的生态系统服务，除了生长之外，在定义响应阈值时还应考虑新的参数。因此，在本期特刊中，我们推动对新方法和新技术发展的讨论，这些方法和技术能够确定树木在次优自然条件下的合适阈值响应，旨在为全球变化下木本物种的驯化和适应过程提供新的见解。
