Skip to main content
ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #68811
Title: INTRASPECIFIC VARIATION IN HONEY MESQUITE SEEDLING GROWTH IN RESPONSE TO CO2 ENRICHMENT

Author
item Brown, Daniel
item Tischler, Charles
item Polley, Herbert
item Johnson, Hyrum
item Mayeux Jr, Herman
item Pennington, Rodney

Submitted to: Proceedings Southwestern Association of Naturalists Annual Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/3/1996
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Experiments were conducted to determine whether growth of 16 maternal half-sib honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa Torr. var. glandulosa) families responded differently to atmospheric CO2 concentrations expected in the future. Seedlings were grown at current (380 umol mol**1) and elevated (700 and 1000 umol mol**1) CO2 concentrations under optimal conditions. Biomass accumulation of all families responded positively to elevated CO2. Nine families exhibited greatest biomass increase as CO2 rose from 380 to 700 umol mol**1. Five of the remaining families responded more favorably to the increase in CO2 from 700 to 1000 umol mol**1, suggesting that the threshhold for CO2 response among the 16 families differed. Weak responses to CO2 elevations were observed for two families. If the variation in CO2 response observed among these families is representative of that within mesquite, increasing atmospheric CO2 may serve as a selective agent, influencing the relative frequency of different genotypes in mesquite populations.