Tree water uptake patterns across the globe

Christoph Bachofen, Shersingh Joseph Tumber-Dávila, D. Scott Mackay, Nate G. McDowell, Andrea Carminati, Tamir Klein, Benjamin D. Stocker, Maurizio Mencuccini, Charlotte Grossiord

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Abstract

Summary Plant water uptake from the soil is a crucial element of the global hydrological cycle and essential for vegetation drought resilience. Yet, knowledge of how the distribution of water uptake depth (WUD) varies across species, climates, and seasons is scarce relative to our knowledge of aboveground plant functions. With a global literature review, we found that average WUD varied more among biomes than plant functional types (i.e. deciduous/evergreen broadleaves and conifers), illustrating the importance of the hydroclimate, especially precipitation seasonality, on WUD. By combining records of rooting depth with WUD, we observed a consistently deeper maximum rooting depth than WUD with the largest differences in arid regions???indicating that deep taproots act as lifelines while not contributing to the majority of water uptake. The most ubiquitous observation across the literature was that woody plants switch water sources to soil layers with the highest water availability within short timescales. Hence, seasonal shifts to deep soil layers occur across the globe when shallow soils are drying out, allowing continued transpiration and hydraulic safety. While there are still significant gaps in our understanding of WUD, the consistency across global ecosystems allows integration of existing knowledge into the next generation of vegetation process models.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1891-1910
Number of pages20
JournalNEW PHYTOLOGIST
Volume242
Issue number5
Early online date22 Apr 2024
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2024

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Physiology
  • Plant Science

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