Physiological Acclimation to Global Change

As anthropogenic activities continue to alter the environmental conditions experienced by trees, there has been an increasing focus on how trees and forests will respond to extended global changes. Past studies have shown that trees possess the capacity to acclimate to expected global changes, such as warmer temperatures, rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, increased variability in soil water, and greater nitrogen deposition, but these results vary across species and environmental conditions. Physiological acclimation results in responses that would not be expected based on tree responses to short-term (e.g., seconds to minutes) stimuli alone. However, despite decades of research, the mechanisms underlying acclimation responses are still not well understood across large spatial, temporal, and phylogenetic scales. Given that tree physiological processes help drive global carbon, water, and energy fluxes, it is important to have a firm understanding of these mechanisms in order to reliably simulate the rate and magnitude of future climate change.

In this Research Topic, we will provide an open-access collection compendium of the state-of-the-science of tree physiological acclimation to global change. To achieve this, the Research Topic will be broad in scope. We ask that articles advance scientific understanding of the mechanisms underlying physiological acclimation to global change, provide a strategy for describing these mechanisms at large scales, and/or examine the influence of acclimation on higher order processes, such as community ecology, ecosystem ecology, or feedbacks to climate change. We welcome original research utilizing experimental, theoretical, or modeling techniques. We also welcome all other article types, including reviews, opinions, and perspectives.