{
  "abstract": "The magnitude of the terrestrial carbon sink remains a key uncertainty in future climate projections, in part due to poorly understood links between carbon uptake and its allocation to woody biomass in vegetation. Here, in this study, we show that photosynthesis and aboveground growth occur asynchronously across diel to seasonal scales in eight North American oak species. Across 137 tree ring sites, current-year annual growth was insensitive to climate variability after midsummer despite 26 to 36% of annual gross primary productivity (GPP) occurring during this period. Hourly GPP flux and growth measurements at four sites spanning seven site years further demonstrate that wood formation ceases earlier than photosynthesis and is restricted to periods of low atmospheric aridity and temperature. This photosynthesis-growth decoupling intensifies with interannual variability in vapor pressure deficit ( r = 0.86, P < 0.05), suggesting that by assuming tight coupling between photosynthesis and woody biomass, current earth system models may overestimate long-term carbon sequestration in forests.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "CREAF, Cerdanyola del Vallès (Barcelona), Catalonia, Spain",
    "Cooperative Programs for the Advancement of Earth System Science, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA",
    "Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA",
    "Tree-Ring Laboratory, Biology and Paleo-Environment Division, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA",
    "TESAF, Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture, and Forestry, University of Padova, Padova, Italy",
    "Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA",
    "Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA",
    "Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA",
    "Pachama, Berkeley, CA, USA",
    "Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales-IANIGLA, CONICET, Mendoza, Argentina",
    "Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA",
    "NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA",
    "Biosphere Sciences & Engineering, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA, USA",
    "Department of Earth Science and Environmental Change, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA",
    "Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA",
    "Q-ForestLab, Department of Environment, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium",
    "Biology and Paleo-Environment, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA",
    "Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA",
    "Biology Department University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA",
    "The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL, USA",
    "Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA",
    "Hise Scientific, Somers, NY, USA",
    "Department of Atmospheric and Climate Science, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA",
    "Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain",
    "Department of Natural Resources and Society, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA",
    "Harvard Forest, Harvard University, Petersham, MA, USA",
    "Geography, Environment, & Society, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA",
    "Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA",
    "Department of Geosciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA",
    "Department of Geography, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA",
    "College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, USA",
    "Department of Biology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA",
    "CSIC, Global Ecology Unit CREAF-CSIC-UAB, Bellaterra, Catalonia, Spain",
    "Department of Forest Management, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 29,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1,
        2,
        3
      ],
      "name": "Mukund Palat Rao",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-3398-2453"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4,
        3
      ],
      "name": "Arturo Pacheco-Solana",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-7049-7364"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5,
        6
      ],
      "name": "Rong Li",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-0536-5098"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        7
      ],
      "name": "Bar Oryan",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5000-5668"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        8
      ],
      "name": "Johanna Jensen",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-8811-7091"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2,
        9
      ],
      "name": "Milagros Rodríguez‐Catón",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-9608-0150"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Lily Klinek",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-3923-7406"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        10,
        11
      ],
      "name": "Zoe Pierrat",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-6726-2406"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        12
      ],
      "name": "Sophie Ruehr",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-0628-6383"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        13
      ],
      "name": "Rose Oelkers",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-7386-6783"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        14,
        15
      ],
      "name": "Laura E. Boeschoten",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-6061-2194"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        16,
        17,
        14
      ],
      "name": "Kevin Lee Griffin",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-4124-3757"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        18,
        19
      ],
      "name": "Michael McCormack",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-8300-5215"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6
      ],
      "name": "Xi Yang",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-5095-6735"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        20
      ],
      "name": "Joseph Verfaillie",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-7009-8942"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        20
      ],
      "name": "Dennis Baldocchi",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-3496-4919"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        21
      ],
      "name": "Jeremy Hise",
      "orcid": "0009-0008-0790-333X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        22
      ],
      "name": "Alexander J. Turner",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-1406-7372"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6
      ],
      "name": "Todd M. Scanlon",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-8869-1675"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        23,
        3
      ],
      "name": "Laia Andreu‐Hayles",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-4185-681X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        24
      ],
      "name": "Jan U.H. Eitel",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-1903-3833"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        25
      ],
      "name": "Neil Pederson",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-3830-263X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        26,
        27
      ],
      "name": "Daniel Griffin",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-1547-3615"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        28
      ],
      "name": "David W. Stahle",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-8943-2541"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        29
      ],
      "name": "Justin T. Maxwell",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-9195-3146"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        30
      ],
      "name": "Steven L. Voelker",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-0110-3381"
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    {
      "affs": [
        31
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      "name": "Steven A. Kannenberg",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-4097-9140"
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    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        32
      ],
      "name": "Josep Peñuelas",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-7215-0150"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        33,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Troy S. Magney",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-9033-0024"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6vgghj6xw6vvw.bib",
  "cited_by": 7,
  "doi": "10.1126/sciadv.ady7139",
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  "id": "6vgghj6xw6vvw",
  "issns": [
    "2375-2548"
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  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ady7139",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2306|Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics"
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  "pdf_url": "https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.ady7139?download=true",
  "pmcid": "PMC13262636",
  "pmid": "42284422",
  "published": "2026-06-12",
  "publisher": "American Association for the Advancement of Science",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6vgghj6xw6vvw.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-05T13:21:10Z",
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  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "earth",
      "origin": "openalex:2306|Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics",
      "subfield": "climate"
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  ],
  "title": "Decoupled carbon assimilation and growth responses to aridity in temperate deciduous oaks",
  "title_text": "Decoupled carbon assimilation and growth responses to aridity in temperate deciduous oaks",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-09T13:21:20Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6vgghj6xw6vvw",
  "venue": "Science Advances",
  "versions": []
}