Night and day – Circadian regulation of night-time dark respiration and light-enhanced dark respiration in plant leaves and canopies

•Circadian oscillation of leaf-level dark respiration scaled to the whole canopy.•This indicates the importance of processes in the recent past to adjust organismal metabolism accordingly on higher organizational scales.•Light enhanced dark respiration was under circadian control only in one of the two species assessed.•This points to variable suppression of the normal cyclic function of the tricarboxylic-acid-cycle in the light.