The Carbon Balance of Plants

Abstract

There has been considerable recent interest in the assessment of the en­ ergy allocation of plants (38, 50, 52). It is likely that through a quantitative understanding of how different plants gain and allocate their resources it will be possible to make predictions as to their success in any given physical envi­ ronment in combination with any competitor and predator. We are still far from this reality. However, as a contribution toward this goal, this review seeks to gather the available. information on the various evolutionary strate­ gies which plants have evolved to gain energy and to account for the numer­ ous ways in which this energy is utilized to meet the demands of the environ­ ment, as well as to successfully produce progeny. To date, studies which have considered allocation have generally been at a rather gross level-e.g., reproductive versus nonreproductive (38), roots versus shoots (117), and photosynthetic versus nonphotosynthetic tissue (86). A study by Harper & Ogden (52) has attempted, however, to account in somewhat more detail for the various sources of energy allocation. To account in more detail for energy gain in allocation and for its even­ tual loss through a variety of routes, the approach that will be used here is the capture of carbon by plants and its SUbsequent diversion into various products which perform a multiplicity of functions. Carbon is the vehicle by which organisms store and transfer energy by chemical binding. This device enables the utilization of a large reservoir of physiological and ecological data into a single coherent body. However, it becomes rather clear that the total information required for any given plant simply does not exist. Thus, this review unfortunately can represent only a composite picture of the gen­ realized routes of carbon movement in plants. It does, however, call attention to the continual partitioning of resources and the multiplicity of carbon path­ ways. Emphasis is placed on the modes of capture of carbon. Hopefully, this analysis will stimulate studies which will provide, for a given series of bio­ types, the total information on carbon gain, use, and loss, so that quantitative models can be derived relating these to shortand long-term environmental influences.