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Updated: Sep 30, 2026

Determination of the Glycogen Content in Cyanobacteria
Published on: July 17, 2017
Carbohydrate content governs growth-storage allocation during recovery from carbon depletion
Franklin Alongi1,2, Danielle E M Ulrich3, Meghan Blumstein4,5
1Department of Biology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, 27109, USA.
Abstract:
How plants prioritize carbon (C) allocation between growth and storage remains an outstanding question, limiting predictions of forest C cycling and ecosystem resilience following periods of C limitation. To address this gap, we experimentally depleted carbohydrate reserves via low-CO2 conditions and quantified C allocation to reserves and growth during recovery at ambient CO2 in Fagus sylvatica juveniles. Trees with lower carbohydrate reserves following C depletion prioritized C allocation to storage, whereas trees replete with carbohydrates favored growth, demonstrating that internal carbohydrate status governs allocation priorities during recovery from periods of C limitation. Our findings show that storage-growth allocation during recovery from C limitation is driven by internal carbohydrate status, identifying plant carbohydrate concentration as a key variable for parameterizing the substrate-dependent sink strength that current process-based vegetation models largely omit.
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