Direct characterization of deep soil water depletion reveals hydraulic adjustment of apple trees to edaphic changes
AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST METEOROLOGY(2024)
摘要
Deep soil water is important for trees to survive droughts in arid and semiarid regions, but often irreversibly decrease as tree age due to limitations in soil infiltration rates and precipitation. How adaptable is the hydraulic system of trees undergoing the depletion of deep soil moisture reserves? To answer this question, we examined 12 traits characterizing the hydraulic structure of apple tree branches along a plantation age gradient (7 - 26 years) under uniform soil and climatic conditions. We found that almost all deep soil available water was consumed (reduced by up to 98%) as apple trees aged, as a result, the fraction of roots located in water deficit layers increased by up to 70%. Reduced water availability in deep soil significantly increased xylem embolism resistance (P50) by 8%, without altering xylem-specific hydraulic conductivity, vessel diameter, or vessel density. A distinct adaptive response to permanently reduced deep soil water availability seems to occur primarily by increasing tree hydraulic safety with no reductions in hydraulic efficiency, through which mechanism trees may acclimatize to deep soil water reduction.
更多查看译文
关键词
Stand age,Deep soil water availability,Vulnerability to cavitation,Hydraulic conductivity
AI 理解论文
溯源树
样例
生成溯源树,研究论文发展脉络
Chat Paper
正在生成论文摘要