Soil water use by co-existing shrubs and grasses in the Southern Chihuahuan Desert, Mexico

Montaña, Carlos; Cavagnaro, Bruno; Briones, Oscar

doi:10.1006/jare.1995.0043

Cited by 61 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Thirdly, shrubs had a more stable and tight relationship with soil factors compared to herbs. Following Walter's (1971) two-layer hypothesis for water relations and coexistence of plants in arid and semi-arid environments, relevant studies have shown that plants differ in their use of water resources in water-limited environments (Montan˜a et al, 1995;Golluscio et al, 1998;Yoder and Nowak, 1999), especially in semi-arid regions with annual rainfall 4300 mm, where deep infiltration occurs more commonly (Reynolds et al, 2000). Schwinning et al (2005b) showed that the water status of the deepest-rooted shrub was least negatively affected by severe drought conditions, and often experience less water stress during dry inter-pulse periods than shallow-rooted plants, because they had the ability to draw on deep-water reserves left over from previous rainy seasons ( Davis and Mooney, 1985;Schwinning et al, 2002;Ogle and Reynolds, 2004).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential responses of shrubs and herbs present at the Upper Minjiang River basin (Tibetan Plateau) to several soil variables

Lü

Zhang

et al. 2006

Journal of Arid Environments

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Vertical structure in plant communities is well recognized, but questions remain about the response of different stratal layers in a plant community to resource use. This study provides a quantitative approach to compare the relationships of nine edaphic factors and species distributions in shrub and herb layers, respectively, in an arid valley of the upper Minjiang River, Sichuan Province, China. Classification (TWINSPAN) determined three groups of shrubs and four groups of herbs. Ordination (both DCA and DCCA) found a correlation among species and edaphic variables. Borcard's method [Borcard, D., Legendre, P., Drapeau, P., 1992. Partialling out the spatial component of ecological variation. Ecology 73, 1045-1055.] was employed to partition the variation of species abundance data into independent components: pure spatial, pure environmental, spatial component of environmental influence, and undetermined. Based on those four components, a quantitative comparison of ecological variation between shrubs and herbs further eluidated their different response to the environment. Although soil moisture (SM) content, pH, soil organic matter (OC) and available potassium (AK) were the most important factors to both, the explained ecological variation of herbs was lower than that of shrubs. Understanding differences between stratal layers in resource use can shed light on plant-environment relationships. r

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential responses of shrubs and herbs present at the Upper Minjiang River basin (Tibetan Plateau) to several soil variables

Lü

Zhang

et al. 2006

Journal of Arid Environments

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In arid and semiarid regions, the vegetation patterns are commonly characterized by a two-phase mosaic structure of bare and vegetated patches consisting of shrub or grass (Montaña et al 1995;Aguiar and Sala 1999). Bare and vegetated patches behave as differential water use patterns to better adjust to variable environments (Dodd et al 1998;Ludwig et al 2005;Ramírez et al 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential soil moisture pulse uptake by coexisting plants in an alpine Achnatherum splendens grassland community

et al. 2016

Environ Earth Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The niche differentiation of resources among coexisting plants commonly reflects the fundamental functions of plant coexistence in water-limited ecosystems. However, the dynamics of water use patterns by coexisting plants that respond to soil moisture pulses are scarcely known in the semiarid alpine ecosystems of the QinghaiTibetan Plateau, particularly for deep-rooted grasses such as Achnatherum splendens in the Qinghai Lake watershed. Hence, we used the stable deuterium isotope method to detect the potential water sources for A. splendens during two growing seasons of 2013 and 2014. Our results indicate that SWC and dD values of shallow soil layer (0-10 cm) showed the highest variations in comparison with those in other soil layers during the growing seasons due to the combined effect of evaporation and precipitation inputs. A. splendens depended largely on shallow soil water availability at the early growing season. At the peak of the growing season, this deep-rooted grass A. splendens and shallow-rooted grass Leymus chinensis showed a high degree of response in the water use source to the changes in soil moisture pulses and shifted their water source from shallow to deep soil layer because water in the shallow soil layer became less available due to a long-time rainless days with strong evaporation effect on the shallow soil layer. In contrast, shallow soil water was utilized by all coexisting plants owing to an abrupt increase in shallow SWC with large events or long-lasting small events. At the late growing season, A. splendens used water from the shallow (0-10 cm) and middle soil layer (10-30 cm), while L. chinensis mainly relied on the shallow soil layer water. Comparatively, shallow-rooted herbs (Heteropappus altaicus and Allium tanguticum) predominantly used water from the shallow soil layer (0-10 cm) over the entire growing seasons regardless of soil water availability. Overall, the contrasting water use patterns by coexisting plants demonstrate their adaptations to the fluctuations of soil moisture pulses in water-limited ecosystems.

show abstract

“…Jolly and Running (2004) emphasized that precipitation is a direct driver of the water balance in ecosystems, but it alone does not control the amount of water available for plants. Similarly, other studies showed a strong dependence of leaf extension and shoot elongation on the current water status in soil (Busso and Richards 1993;Haase et al 1999;Otieno et al 2005;Pugnaire et al 1996) or close relationships between net photosynthesis and stomatal conductance and soil moisture in the upper soil layer (Montaña et al 1995).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 53%

“…In the same way, species belonging to different functional types in a cold desert ecosystem also used the same water sources (Schwinning et al 2005a, b). Accordingly, these results would suggest that almost all desert plants are ''drinking from the same cup'' (Hunter 1989;Reynolds et al 2004) and that grasses and shrubs could be potential competitors for water soil resources (Montaña et al 1995). However, some differences in the onset of leaf emergence and leaf/ shoot growth among the studied species could indicate the existence of species-specific thresholds related to functional and structural constraints ) and provide evidence for temporal functional asynchrony among coexisting species (Chesson et al 2004).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Leaf growth dynamics in four plant species of the Patagonian Monte, Argentina

Campanella

Bertiller

2012

J Plant Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Studying plant responses to environmental variables is an elemental key to understand the functioning of arid ecosystems. We selected four dominant species of the two main life forms. The species selected were two evergreen shrubs: Larrea divaricata and Chuquiraga avellanedae and two perennial grasses: Nassella tenuis and Pappostipa speciosa. We registered leaf/shoot growth, leaf production and environmental variables (precipitation, air temperature, and volumetric soil water content at two depths) during summer-autumn and winter-spring periods. Multiple regressions were used to test the predictive power of the environmental variables. During the summer-autumn period, the strongest predictors of leaf/shoot growth and leaf production were the soil water content of the upper layer and air temperature while during the winter-spring period, the strongest predictor was air temperature. In conclusion, we found that the leaf/shoot growth and leaf production were associated with current environmental conditions, specially to soil water content and air temperature.

show abstract

Soil water use by co-existing shrubs and grasses in the Southern Chihuahuan Desert, Mexico

Cited by 61 publications

References 0 publications

Differential responses of shrubs and herbs present at the Upper Minjiang River basin (Tibetan Plateau) to several soil variables

Differential responses of shrubs and herbs present at the Upper Minjiang River basin (Tibetan Plateau) to several soil variables

Differential soil moisture pulse uptake by coexisting plants in an alpine Achnatherum splendens grassland community

Leaf growth dynamics in four plant species of the Patagonian Monte, Argentina

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About