Patterns of plant rehydration and growth following pulses of soil moisture availability

© 2021 World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte Ltd. All rights reserved. Plant hydraulic and photosynthetic responses to individual rain pulses are not well understood because field experiments of pulse behavior are sparse. Understanding individual pulse responses would inform how rainfall intermittency...

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Main Authors: Feldman, Andrew F, Short Gianotti, Daniel J, Konings, Alexandra G, Gentine, Pierre, Entekhabi, Dara
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Copernicus GmbH 2021
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/132966
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author Feldman, Andrew F
Short Gianotti, Daniel J
Konings, Alexandra G
Gentine, Pierre
Entekhabi, Dara
author2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
author_facet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
Feldman, Andrew F
Short Gianotti, Daniel J
Konings, Alexandra G
Gentine, Pierre
Entekhabi, Dara
author_sort Feldman, Andrew F
collection MIT
description © 2021 World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte Ltd. All rights reserved. Plant hydraulic and photosynthetic responses to individual rain pulses are not well understood because field experiments of pulse behavior are sparse. Understanding individual pulse responses would inform how rainfall intermittency impacts terrestrial biogeochemical cycles, especially in drylands, which play a large role in interannual global atmospheric carbon uptake variability. Using satellite-based estimates of predawn plant and soil water content from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite, we quantify the timescales of plant water content increases following rainfall pulses, which we expect bear the signature of whole-plant mechanisms. In wetter regions, we find that plant water content increases rapidly and dries along with soil moisture, which we attribute to predawn soil-plant water potential equilibrium. Global drylands, by contrast, show multi-day plant water content increases after rain pulses. Shorter increases are more common following dry initial soil conditions. These are attributed to slow plant rehydration due to high plant resistances using a plant hydraulic model. Longer multi-day dryland plant water content increases are attributed to pulse-driven growth, following larger rain pulses and wetter initial soil conditions. These dryland responses reflect widespread drought recovery rehydration responses and individual pulse-driven growth responses, as supported by previous isolated field experiments. The response dependence on moisture pulse characteristics, especially in drylands, also shows ecosystem sensitivity to intra-Annual rainfall intensity and frequency, which are shifting with climate change.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1329662024-06-05T20:52:22Z Patterns of plant rehydration and growth following pulses of soil moisture availability Feldman, Andrew F Short Gianotti, Daniel J Konings, Alexandra G Gentine, Pierre Entekhabi, Dara Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society © 2021 World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte Ltd. All rights reserved. Plant hydraulic and photosynthetic responses to individual rain pulses are not well understood because field experiments of pulse behavior are sparse. Understanding individual pulse responses would inform how rainfall intermittency impacts terrestrial biogeochemical cycles, especially in drylands, which play a large role in interannual global atmospheric carbon uptake variability. Using satellite-based estimates of predawn plant and soil water content from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite, we quantify the timescales of plant water content increases following rainfall pulses, which we expect bear the signature of whole-plant mechanisms. In wetter regions, we find that plant water content increases rapidly and dries along with soil moisture, which we attribute to predawn soil-plant water potential equilibrium. Global drylands, by contrast, show multi-day plant water content increases after rain pulses. Shorter increases are more common following dry initial soil conditions. These are attributed to slow plant rehydration due to high plant resistances using a plant hydraulic model. Longer multi-day dryland plant water content increases are attributed to pulse-driven growth, following larger rain pulses and wetter initial soil conditions. These dryland responses reflect widespread drought recovery rehydration responses and individual pulse-driven growth responses, as supported by previous isolated field experiments. The response dependence on moisture pulse characteristics, especially in drylands, also shows ecosystem sensitivity to intra-Annual rainfall intensity and frequency, which are shifting with climate change. 2021-10-13T19:13:46Z 2021-10-13T19:13:46Z 2021-02 2020-12 2021-10-13T18:12:23Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1726-4189 1726-4170 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/132966 Biogeosciences, 18, 831–847, 2021 en 10.5194/BG-18-831-2021 Biogeosciences Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Copernicus GmbH Copernicus Publications
spellingShingle Feldman, Andrew F
Short Gianotti, Daniel J
Konings, Alexandra G
Gentine, Pierre
Entekhabi, Dara
Patterns of plant rehydration and growth following pulses of soil moisture availability
title Patterns of plant rehydration and growth following pulses of soil moisture availability
title_full Patterns of plant rehydration and growth following pulses of soil moisture availability
title_fullStr Patterns of plant rehydration and growth following pulses of soil moisture availability
title_full_unstemmed Patterns of plant rehydration and growth following pulses of soil moisture availability
title_short Patterns of plant rehydration and growth following pulses of soil moisture availability
title_sort patterns of plant rehydration and growth following pulses of soil moisture availability
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/132966
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