The atmospheric potential of biogenic volatile organic compounds from needles of White Pine (<I>Pinus strobus</I>) in Northern Michigan

Abstract

Abstract. The key role biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC) play in atmospheric chemistry requires a detailed understanding of how BVOC concentrations will be affected by environmental change. Large-scale screening of ecosystems is difficult with enclosure methods. In this study, BVOC in needles of 71 white pine trees (Pinus strobus), which are becoming a large part of Midwest forests, are tracked for three summers at the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS). α-pinene, the dominant terpene in all samples, accounts for 30–50% of all terpenes on a mole basis. The most abundant sesquiterpenoid was a C15 alcohol identified as germacrene-D-4-ol. The abundance of this material and its atmospheric relevance has not been considered previously. The relationship between limonene and α-pinene clearly shows two distinct trends in the population of these forests. About 15% of the trees showed high levels of limonene (up to 36% of the total BVOC) in the same trees every year. With this mixture, limonene contributes 11% of the α-pinene contribution to total gas-phase OH loss at UMBS compared to less than 2% considering the composition of the majority trees. Hence we show that chemotypic variation within forests can affect atmospheric chemistry and that large-scale screening of BVOC can be used effectively to study the importance of BVOC variation for predicting atmospheric chemistry in future forests.