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Hydraulic Water Redistribution by Silver Fir (Abies alba Mill.) Occurring under Severe Soil Drought
- Source :
- Forests, Volume 11, Issue 2, Forests, Vol 11, Iss 2, p 162 (2020), Forests, 11 (2), Article: 162
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2020.
-
Abstract
- Hydraulic redistribution (HR) of water from wet- to dry-soil zones is suggested as an important process in the resilience of forest ecosystems to drought stress in semiarid and tropical climates. Scenarios of future climate change predict an increase of severe drought conditions in temperate climate regions. This implies the need for adaptations of locally managed forest systems, such as European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) monocultures, for instance, through the admixing of deep-rooting silver fir (Abies alba Mill.). We designed a stable-isotope-based split-root experiment under controlled conditions to test whether silver fir seedlings could perform HR and therefore reduce drought stress in neighboring beech seedlings. Our results showed that HR by silver fir does occur, but with a delayed onset of three weeks after isotopic labelling with 2H2O (&delta<br />2H &asymp<br />+6000&permil<br />), and at low rates. On average, 0.2% of added &sup2<br />H excess could be recovered via HR. Fir roots released water under dry-soil conditions that caused some European beech seedlings to permanently wilt. On the basis of these results, we concluded that HR by silver fir does occur, but the potential for mitigating drought stress in beech is limited. Admixing silver fir into beech stands as a climate change adaptation strategy needs to be assessed in field studies with sufficient monitoring time.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
hydraulic redistribution
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
drought
01 natural sciences
Fagus sylvatica
Forest ecology
ddc:550
Temperate climate
Hydraulic redistribution
silver fir
Beech
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
biology
Delayed onset
Forestry
lcsh:QK900-989
biology.organism_classification
Abies alba
European beech
Earth sciences
Agronomy
lcsh:Plant ecology
Environmental science
Monoculture
mixed stand
010606 plant biology & botany
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19994907
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Forests
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....a19b5efdd82ac4210451213cd502dfed
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.3390/f11020162