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Related Experiment Video

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Soil Lysimeter Excavation for Coupled Hydrological, Geochemical, and Microbiological Investigations

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Published on: September 11, 2016

Global variations in ecosystem-scale isohydricity.

Alexandra G Konings^1,2, Pierre Gentine^1,3

¹Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA.

Global Change Biology

|June 24, 2016

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Climate change intensifies droughts, impacting plant water regulation. This study introduces an ecosystem-scale metric for plant isohydricity, using satellite data to assess drought resilience and water use efficiency globally.

Keywords:

diurnal cycle drought stress isohydricity leaf water potential stomatal closure vegetation height vegetation optical depth water use efficiency

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Area of Science:

Ecology
Climate Science
Plant Physiology

Background:

Droughts are increasing in frequency and intensity due to climate change.
Plant responses to drought, including mortality and biomass decline, are governed by stomatal and xylem flow regulation.
Plants exhibit a spectrum of water regulation strategies, from isohydric (strict regulation) to anisohydric (loose regulation).

Purpose of the Study:

To develop and globally evaluate a metric for ecosystem-scale isohydricity.
To improve predictions of ecosystem drought resilience by understanding water regulation at the ecosystem level.
To assess the predictability of ecosystem isohydricity based on land cover and canopy height.

Main Methods:

Defined an ecosystem-scale isohydricity metric analogous to a species-level metric.
Utilized data from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) satellite.
Evaluated the metric globally using diurnal variations in microwave vegetation optical depth (VOD) as a proxy for leaf water potential.

Main Results:

Low annual mean radiation areas were found to be more anisohydric.
Land cover type was a poor predictor of ecosystem isohydricity, except for tropical evergreen broadleaf forests (isohydric) and croplands (anisohydric).
Canopy height correlated with higher isohydricity in taller ecosystems; rainforests were predominantly isohydric.

Conclusions:

Ecosystem isohydricity varies spatially and temporally, with implications for drought resilience modeling.
Land cover is not a reliable basis for parameterizing water stress responses in land-surface models.
Seasonal shifts in isohydricity were observed, with some tropical forests showing a trend reversal during the dry season.