Water relations of evergreen and drought-deciduous trees along a seasonally dry tropical forest chronosequence

Exploiting water versus tolerating drought: water-use strategies of trees in a secondary successional tropical dry forest

In seasonal plant communities where water availability changes dramatically both between and within seasons, understanding the mechanisms that enable plants to exploit water pulses and to survive drought periods is crucial. By measuring rates of physiological processes, we examined the trade-off between water exploitation and drought tolerance among seedlings of trees of a tropical dry forest, and identified biophysical traits most closely associated with plant water-use strategies. We also explored whether early and late secondary successional species occupy different portions of trade-off axes. As predicted, species that maintained carbon capture, hydraulic function and leaf area at higher plant water deficits during drought had low photosynthetic rates, xylem hydraulic conductivity and growth rate under non-limiting water supply. Drought tolerance was associated with more dense leaf, stem and root tissues, whereas rapid resource acquisition was associated with greater stem water storage, larger vessel diameter and larger leaf area per mass invested. We offer evidence that the water exploitation versus drought tolerance trade-off drives species differentiation in the ability of tropical dry forest trees to deal with alternating water-drought pulses. However, we detected no evidence of strong functional differentiation between early and late successional species along the proposed trade-off axes, suggesting that the environmental gradient of water availability across secondary successional habitats in the dry tropics does not filter out physiological strategies of water use among species, at least at the seedling stage.

Water Relations and Foliar Isotopic Composition of Prosopis tamarugo Phil., an Endemic Tree of the Atacama Desert Growing at Three Levels of Water Table Depth

Prosopis tamarugo Phil. is a strict phreatophyte tree species endemic to the "Pampa del Tamarugal", Atacama Desert. The extraction of water for various uses has increased the depth of the water table in the Pampa aquifers threatening its conservation. This study aimed to determine the effect of the groundwater table depth on the water relations of P. tamarugo and to present thresholds of groundwater depth (GWD) that can be used in the groundwater management of the P. tamarugo ecosystem. Three levels of GWD, 11.2 ± 0.3 m, 10.3 ± 0.3 m, and 7.1 ± 0.1 m, (the last GWD being our reference) were selected and groups of four individuals per GWD were studied in the months of January and July of the years 2011 through 2014. When the water table depth exceeded 10 m, P. tamarugo had lower pre-dawn and mid-day water potential but no differences were observed in minimum leaf stomatal resistance when compared to the condition of 7.1 m GWD; the leaf tissue increased its δ(13)C and δ(18)O composition. Furthermore, a smaller green canopy fraction of the trees and increased foliage loss in winter with increasing water table depth was observed. The differences observed in the physiological behavior of P. tamarugo trees, attributable to the ground water depth; show that increasing the depth of the water table from 7 to 11 m significantly affects the water status of P. tamarugo. The results indicate that P. tamarugo has an anisohydric stomatal behavior and that given a reduction in water supply it regulates the water demand via foliage loss. The growth and leaf physiological activities are highly sensitive to GWD. The foliage loss appears to prevent the trees from reaching water potentials leading to complete loss of hydraulic functionality by cavitation. The balance achieved between water supply and demand was reflected in the low variation of the water potential and of the variables related to gas exchange over time for a given GWD. This acclimation capacity of P. tamarugo after experiencing increases in GWD has great value for the implementation of conservation strategies. The thresholds presented in this paper should prove useful for conservation purposes of this unique species.

Different soil respiration responses to litter manipulation in three subtropical successional forests

Aboveground litter inputs have been greatly altered by human disturbances and climate change, which have important effects on soil respiration. However, the knowledge of how soil respiration responds to altered litter inputs is limited in tropical and subtropical forests. We conducted an aboveground litterfall manipulation experiment in three successional forests in the subtropics to examine the soil respiration responses to different litter inputs from January 2010 to July 2012. The soil respiration decreased by 35% in the litter exclusion treatments and increased by 77% in the doubled litter additions across all three forests. The reduction in soil respiration induced by the litter exclusion was greatest in the early successional forest, which may be related to a decrease in the soil moisture and shifts in the microbial community. The increase in soil respiration produced by the doubled litter addition was largest in the mature forest, which was most probably due to its relatively high quantity and quality of litterfall. Our results suggest that the effect of reduced litter inputs on the soil respiration lessened with forest succession but that the doubled litter inputs resulted in a stronger priming effect in the mature forest than in the other two forests.

Effects of forest age on soil autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration differ between evergreen and deciduous forests

We examined the effects of forest stand age on soil respiration (SR) including the heterotrophic respiration (HR) and autotrophic respiration (AR) of two forest types. We measured soil respiration and partitioned the HR and AR components across three age classes ~15, ~25, and ~35-year-old Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica (Mongolia pine) and Larix principis-rupprechtii (larch) in a forest-steppe ecotone, northern China (June 2006 to October 2009). We analyzed the relationship between seasonal dynamics of SR, HR, AR and soil temperature (ST), soil water content (SWC) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI, a plant greenness and net primary productivity indicator). Our results showed that ST and SWC were driving factors for the seasonal dynamics of SR rather than plant greenness, irrespective of stand age and forest type. For ~15-year-old stands, the seasonal dynamics of both AR and HR were dependent on ST. Higher Q10 of HR compared with AR occurred in larch. However, in Mongolia pine a similar Q10 occurred between HR and AR. With stand age, Q10 of both HR and AR increased in larch. For Mongolia pine, Q10 of HR increased with stand age, but AR showed no significant relationship with ST. As stand age increased, HR was correlated with SWC in Mongolia pine, but for larch AR correlated with SWC. The dependence of AR on NDVI occurred in ~35-year-old Mongolia pine. Our study demonstrated the importance of separating autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration components of SR when stimulating the response of soil carbon efflux to environmental changes. When estimating the response of autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration to environmental changes, the effect of forest type on age-related trends is required.

Drought resistance in early and late secondary successional species from a tropical dry forest: the interplay between xylem resistance to embolism, sapwood water storage and leaf shedding

The mechanisms of drought resistance that allow plants to successfully establish at different stages of secondary succession in tropical dry forests are not well understood. We characterized mechanisms of drought resistance in early and late-successional species and tested whether risk of drought differs across sites at different successional stages, and whether early and late-successional species differ in resistance to experimentally imposed soil drought. The microenvironment in early successional sites was warmer and drier than in mature forest. Nevertheless, successional groups did not differ in resistance to soil drought. Late-successional species resisted drought through two independent mechanisms: high resistance of xylem to embolism, or reliance on high stem water storage capacity. High sapwood water reserves delayed the effects of soil drying by transiently decoupling plant and soil water status. Resistance to soil drought resulted from the interplay between variations in xylem vulnerability to embolism, reliance on sapwood water reserves and leaf area reduction, leading to a tradeoff of avoidance against tolerance of soil drought, along which successional groups were not differentiated. Overall, our data suggest that ranking species' performance under soil drought based solely on xylem resistance to embolism may be misleading, especially for species with high sapwood water storage capacity.