Predicting resilience through the lens of competing adjustments to vegetation function

Sabot, Manon; Kauwe, Martin G. De; Pitman, A. J.; Ellsworth, David S.; Medlyn, Belinda E.; Caldararu, Silvia; Zaehle, Sönke; Crous, Kristine Y.; Gimeno, Teresa E.; Wujeska‐Klause, Agnieszka; Mu, Mengyuan; Yang, Jinyan

doi:10.1111/pce.14376

Cited by 16 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 108 publications

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“…Second, there was observed damage to the canopy, whereby much of the upper sunlit layer was scorched during the drought. In addition to drought‐induced leaf abscission (Figure S3f), which can protect the xylem of more costly woody tissues (Nadal‐Sala et al, 2021; Sabot et al, 2022), a considerable amount of necrotic leaf tissue remained intact in the upper sunlit canopy (Kravitz et al, 2016). Thus, large quantities of light would have been absorbed by physiologically inactive leaves, thereby limiting LUE recovery.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ecosystem wilting point defines drought response and recovery of a Quercus‐Carya forest

Wood

Hanson

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

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Soil and atmospheric droughts increasingly threaten plant survival and productivity around the world. Yet, conceptual gaps constrain our ability to predict ecosystem‐scale drought impacts under climate change. Here, we introduce the ecosystem wilting point (ΨEWP), a property that integrates the drought response of an ecosystem's plant community across the soil–plant–atmosphere continuum. Specifically, ΨEWP defines a threshold below which the capacity of the root system to extract soil water and the ability of the leaves to maintain stomatal function are strongly diminished. We combined ecosystem flux and leaf water potential measurements to derive the ΨEWP of a Quercus‐Carya forest from an “ecosystem pressure–volume (PV) curve,” which is analogous to the tissue‐level technique. When community predawn leaf water potential (Ψpd) was above ΨEWP (=−2.0 MPa), the forest was highly responsive to environmental dynamics. When Ψpd fell below ΨEWP, the forest became insensitive to environmental variation and was a net source of carbon dioxide for nearly 2 months. Thus, ΨEWP is a threshold defining marked shifts in ecosystem functional state. Though there was rainfall‐induced recovery of ecosystem gas exchange following soaking rains, a legacy of structural and physiological damage inhibited canopy photosynthetic capacity. Although over 16 growing seasons, only 10% of Ψpd observations fell below ΨEWP, the forest is commonly only 2–4 weeks of intense drought away from reaching ΨEWP, and thus highly reliant on frequent rainfall to replenish the soil water supply. We propose, based on a bottom‐up analysis of root density profiles and soil moisture characteristic curves, that soil water acquisition capacity is the major determinant of ΨEWP, and species in an ecosystem require compatible leaf‐level traits such as turgor loss point so that leaf wilting is coordinated with the inability to extract further water from the soil.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ecosystem wilting point defines drought response and recovery of a Quercus‐Carya forest

Wood

Hanson

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

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“…Similarly, changes in LMA are directly tied to changes in whole‐plant leaf area and HV, making it potentially difficult to isolate leaf‐level plasticity from whole‐plant structural changes. Joint experimental and modelling studies have suggested that leaf shedding or reduced leaf growth is the most effective strategy to protect trees from subsequent drought events (Nadal‐Sala et al ., 2021; Sabot et al ., 2022). This is supported by evidence from local and global environmental gradients, where plants in drier environments tend to have greater HV to minimise water losses (Mencuccini et al ., 2019; Anderegg et al ., 2021).…”

Section: Summarising Plasticity In Key Traits In Response To Droughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

How woody plants adjust above‐ and below‐ground traits in response to sustained drought

et al. 2023

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Summary Future increases in drought severity and frequency are predicted to have substantial impacts on plant function and survival. However, there is considerable uncertainty concerning what drought adjustment is and whether plants can adjust to sustained drought. This review focuses on woody plants and synthesises the evidence for drought adjustment in a selection of key above‐ground and below‐ground plant traits. We assess whether evaluating the drought adjustment of single traits, or selections of traits that operate on the same plant functional axis (e.g. photosynthetic traits) is sufficient, or whether a multi‐trait approach, integrating across multiple axes, is required. We conclude that studies on drought adjustments in woody plants might overestimate the capacity for adjustment to drier environments if spatial studies along gradients are used, without complementary experimental approaches. We provide evidence that drought adjustment is common in above‐ground and below‐ground traits; however, whether this is adaptive and sufficient to respond to future droughts remains uncertain for most species. To address this uncertainty, we must move towards studying trait integration within and across multiple axes of plant function (e.g. above‐ground and below‐ground) to gain a holistic view of drought adjustments at the whole‐plant scale and how these influence plant survival.

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“…2 and needs to be accounted for when predicting range dynamics (Chuine, 2010). Because transpiration and water demand from the canopy are largely determined by the amount of evaporating surface, tissuelevel exposure to drought is controlled, to an important extent, by the dynamics of leaf area (Wolfe et al, 2016;Sabot et al, 2022).…”

Section: Accounting For Environmental Variability and Local Exposurementioning

confidence: 99%

Accounting for trait variability and coordination in predictions of drought‐induced range shifts in woody plants

Martínez‐Vilalta,

García‐Valdés,

Jump

et al. 2023

New Phytologist

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SummaryFunctional traits offer a promising avenue to improve predictions of species range shifts under climate change, which will entail warmer and often drier conditions. Although the conceptual foundation linking traits with plant performance and range shifts appears solid, the predictive ability of individual traits remains generally low. In this review, we address this apparent paradox, emphasizing examples of woody plants and traits associated with drought responses at the species' rear edge. Low predictive ability reflects the fact not only that range dynamics tend to be complex and multifactorial, as well as uncertainty in the identification of relevant traits and limited data availability, but also that trait effects are scale‐ and context‐dependent. The latter results from the complex interactions among traits (e.g. compensatory effects) and between them and the environment (e.g. exposure), which ultimately determine persistence and colonization capacity. To confront this complexity, a more balanced coverage of the main functional dimensions involved (stress tolerance, resource use, regeneration and dispersal) is needed, and modelling approaches must be developed that explicitly account for: trait coordination in a hierarchical context; trait variability in space and time and its relationship with exposure; and the effect of biotic interactions in an ecological community context.

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Predicting resilience through the lens of competing adjustments to vegetation function

Cited by 16 publications

References 108 publications

The ecosystem wilting point defines drought response and recovery of a Quercus‐Carya forest

The ecosystem wilting point defines drought response and recovery of a Quercus‐Carya forest

How woody plants adjust above‐ and below‐ground traits in response to sustained drought

Accounting for trait variability and coordination in predictions of drought‐induced range shifts in woody plants

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