Seasonal Variation in Amount and Composition of Monoterpenes Emitted by Young Pinus pinea Trees – Implications for Emission Modeling

1573-0662

monoterpene emission ; Mediterranean pine ; seasonal variation ; light ; temperature ; algorithms ; model

Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000

Chemistry and Pharmacology

Geosciences

Abstract Current inventories of terpenes released from vegetation consider only the short-term influences of light and temperature on emissions to simulate temporal variation during the year. We studied whole canopy emissions from young Pinus pinea during a 15-month enclosure in greenhouse chambers and examined data for other long-term influences. Mean daytime emission rates strongly increased during spring, reached an annual maximum of ≈ 200 pmol m−2 total needle area s−1 (1.1 μg g−1 leaf dry weight h−1) between mid June and mid August, strongly declined in fall and reached an annual minimum of ≈ 1 pmol m−2 s−1 (0.006 μg g−1 h−1) between January and February. Normalization to standard temperature and light conditions did not change the annual time course of emissions, but reduced summer to winter ratio from a factor of 200 to about 45. Seasonal variation was characterized also by changes in terpene composition: among the six main compounds, three (t-β-ocimene, linalool, 1.8-cineol) were exclusively emitted during sunlit hours in the main vegetation period, whereas the other (limonene, α-pinene, myrcene) were emitted day and night and throughout the seasons. The results suggest that different terpene sources in P. pinea foliage exist and that a great part of the annual emission course observed here results from seasonal influences on these sources. A global model to simulate plant emissions is proposed, which accounts for seasonal influences on emissions in addition to the short-term effects of temperature and light. The model is tested on field data and discussed for its general application.

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