Root lateral interactions drive water uptake patterns under water limitation

Agee, Elizabeth; He, Lizhong; Bisht, Gautam; Couvreur, Valentin; Shahbaz, Parisa; Meunier, Félicien; Gough, Christopher M.; Matheny, Ashley M.; Bohrer, Gil; Ivanov, V. Y.

doi:10.1016/j.advwatres.2021.103896

Cited by 32 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 79 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Deeper water uptake by younger hemlock may represent within-species competition. Lateral root spread by mature trees can force deeper stand water uptake during periods of shallow water limitation (Agee et al, 2021). Younger hemlock may also have a greater need for sustained transpiration owing to growth requirements and less potential for internal water storage.…”

Section: Water Use Strategy Based On Coordination Of Rooting Uptake D...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Use Strategy of Riparian Conifers Varies with Tree Size and Depends on Coordination of Water Uptake Depth and Internal Tree Water Storage

Knighton

2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Trees employ mechanisms to maintain safe xylem water transport including variations in trunk water storage and the depth of root water uptake. We tested the hypotheses that 1) trunk water storage is correlated with root water uptake in Eastern hemlock, 2) and that water use strategy varies with tree size. High spatiotemporal sampling of soil and hemlock xylem (30 trees) water isotopic ratios (2H, 18O) and tree tissue Relative Water Content (RWC) was conducted across seven months. Hemlock accessing more evaporatively enriched water from shallow soils stored less water within their trunks during dry periods, and more during wet periods. Soil and xylem water isotopic compositions revealed older and lower elevation hemlock primarily sourced water uptake from the upper 10 cm of soils, whereas younger and higher elevation trees sourced some water uptake from deeper soil layers. Larger diameter hemlock showed significant temporal changes in trunk RWC. In contrast, smaller diameter trees exhibited more temporally stable RWC. Observed species-level heterogeneity in xylem water isotope composition suggests the need for reporting of tree ages and a standardization of field sampling protocols to support our understanding of tree water use strategies. Our results inform the development of plant hydraulic strategies in ecohydrological- and terrestrial biosphere-models to understand forest responses to external stressors.

show abstract

Section: Water Use Strategy Based On Coordination Of Rooting Uptake D...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Use Strategy of Riparian Conifers Varies with Tree Size and Depends on Coordination of Water Uptake Depth and Internal Tree Water Storage

Knighton

2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Inferences regarding plant water sourcing and below-ground behaviour are often limited by current model representations that treat the rhizosphere as a one-dimensional profile, with no lateral interaction or competition (Warren et al, 2014). However, root structure and interactions have been shown to alter the spatio-temporal evolution of both soil moisture and plant water sourcing (Agee et al, 2021;Couvreur et al, 2012;Guswa, 2012). In addition, edaphic and lithological factors at a site often constrain the overall amount of water available to plants and can either ameliorate or exacerbate the climatic stress imposed on plants (Hahm et al, 2019;McLaughlin et al, 2020).…”

Section: Looking Below-groundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities, challenges and pitfalls in characterizing plant water‐use strategies

et al. 2021

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

1. Classifying the diverse ways that plants respond to hydrologic stress into generalizable 'water-use strategies' has long been an eco-physiological research goal.While many schemes for describing water-use strategies have proven to be quite useful, they are also associated with uncertainties regarding their theoretical basis and their connection to plant carbon and water relations. In this review, we discuss the factors that shape plant water stress responses and assess the approaches used to classify a plant's water-use strategy, paying particular attention to the popular but controversial concept of a continuum from isohydry to anisohydry.2. A generalizable and predictive framework for assessing plant water-use strategies has been historically elusive, yet recent advances in plant physiology and hydraulics provide the field with a way past these obstacles. Specifically, we promote the idea that many metrics that quantify water-use strategies are highly dynamic and emergent from the interaction between plant traits and environmental conditions, and that this complexity has historically hindered the development of a generalizable water-use strategy framework.3. This idea is explored using a plant hydraulics model to identify: (a) distinct temporal phases in plant hydraulic regulation during drought that underpin dynamic water-use responses, and (b) how variation in both traits and environmental forcings can significantly alter common metrics used to characterize plant water-use strategies. This modelling exercise can bridge the divide between various conceptualizations of water-use strategies and provide targeted hypotheses to advance the understanding and quantification of plant water status regulation across spatial and temporal scales.4. Finally, we describe research frontiers that are necessary to improve the predictive capacity of the plant water-use strategy concept, including further investigation into the below-ground determinants of plant water relations, targeted data collection efforts and the potential to scale these concepts from individuals to whole regions.

show abstract

“…These smaller scale models incorporate root morphology and physiology, with spatiotemporal patterns of water uptake emerging as a result of interactions between the physical soil environment and root biology (Doussan et al, 2006). These models capture spatial and temporal shifts in plant water sourcing driven by individual and competitive interactions among plants within the system (Manoli et al, 2014;Agee et al, 2021). A modeling study using 3 years of seasonal drought data from the Amazon suggested that deep roots with niche partitioning adaptations, which source water from different depths in the soil during different times of year, explained observational resilience to seasonal drought and vulnerability to severe episodic drought (Ivanov et al, 2012).…”

Section: Vegetation Models: Nutrient Uptakementioning

confidence: 99%

Tradeoffs and Synergies in Tropical Forest Root Traits and Dynamics for Nutrient and Water Acquisition: Field and Modeling Advances

Cusack

Addo-Danso

Agee

et al. 2021

Front. For. Glob. Change

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Vegetation processes are fundamentally limited by nutrient and water availability, the uptake of which is mediated by plant roots in terrestrial ecosystems. While tropical forests play a central role in global water, carbon, and nutrient cycling, we know very little about tradeoffs and synergies in root traits that respond to resource scarcity. Tropical trees face a unique set of resource limitations, with rock-derived nutrients and moisture seasonality governing many ecosystem functions, and nutrient versus water availability often separated spatially and temporally. Root traits that characterize biomass, depth distributions, production and phenology, morphology, physiology, chemistry, and symbiotic relationships can be predictive of plants’ capacities to access and acquire nutrients and water, with links to aboveground processes like transpiration, wood productivity, and leaf phenology. In this review, we identify an emerging trend in the literature that tropical fine root biomass and production in surface soils are greatest in infertile or sufficiently moist soils. We also identify interesting paradoxes in tropical forest root responses to changing resources that merit further exploration. For example, specific root length, which typically increases under resource scarcity to expand the volume of soil explored, instead can increase with greater base cation availability, both across natural tropical forest gradients and in fertilization experiments. Also, nutrient additions, rather than reducing mycorrhizal colonization of fine roots as might be expected, increased colonization rates under scenarios of water scarcity in some forests. Efforts to include fine root traits and functions in vegetation models have grown more sophisticated over time, yet there is a disconnect between the emphasis in models characterizing nutrient and water uptake rates and carbon costs versus the emphasis in field experiments on measuring root biomass, production, and morphology in response to changes in resource availability. Closer integration of field and modeling efforts could connect mechanistic investigation of fine-root dynamics to ecosystem-scale understanding of nutrient and water cycling, allowing us to better predict tropical forest-climate feedbacks.

show abstract

Root lateral interactions drive water uptake patterns under water limitation

Cited by 32 publications

References 79 publications

Water Use Strategy of Riparian Conifers Varies with Tree Size and Depends on Coordination of Water Uptake Depth and Internal Tree Water Storage

Water Use Strategy of Riparian Conifers Varies with Tree Size and Depends on Coordination of Water Uptake Depth and Internal Tree Water Storage

Opportunities, challenges and pitfalls in characterizing plant water‐use strategies

Tradeoffs and Synergies in Tropical Forest Root Traits and Dynamics for Nutrient and Water Acquisition: Field and Modeling Advances

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About