Tradeoffs and synergies in tropical forest root traits and dynamics for nutrient and water acquisition: field and modeling advances

Vegetation processes are fundamentally limited by nutrient and water availability, the uptake of which is mediated by plant roots in terrestrial ecosystems. While tropical forests play a central role in global water, carbon, and nutrient cycling, we know very little about tradeoffs and synergies in...

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Main Authors: Cusack, Daniela Francis, Addo-Danso, Shalom D., Agee, Elizabeth A., Andersen, Kelly M., Arnaud, Marie, Batterman, Sarah A., Brearley, Francis Q., Ciochina, Mark I., Cordeiro, Amanda L., Dallstream, Caroline, Diaz-Toribio, Milton H., Dietterich, Lee H., Fisher, Joshua B., Fleischer, Katrin, Fortunel, Claire, Fuchslueger, Lucia, Guerrero-Ramírez, Nathaly R., Kotowska, Martyna M., Lugli, Laynara Figueiredo, Marín, Cesar, McCulloch, Lindsay A., Maeght, Jean-Luc, Metcalfe, Dan, Norby, Richard J., Oliveira, Rafael S., Powers, Jennifer S., Reichert, Tatiana, Smith, Stuart William, Smith-Martin, Chris M., Soper, Fiona M., Toro, Laura, Umaña, Maria N., Valverde-Barrantes, Oscar, Weemstra, Monique, Werden, Leland K., Wong, Michelle, Wright, Cynthia L., Wright, Stuart Joseph, Yaffar, Daniela
Other Authors: Asian School of the Environment
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/162566
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author Cusack, Daniela Francis
Addo-Danso, Shalom D.
Agee, Elizabeth A.
Andersen, Kelly M.
Arnaud, Marie
Batterman, Sarah A.
Brearley, Francis Q.
Ciochina, Mark I.
Cordeiro, Amanda L.
Dallstream, Caroline
Diaz-Toribio, Milton H.
Dietterich, Lee H.
Fisher, Joshua B.
Fleischer, Katrin
Fortunel, Claire
Fuchslueger, Lucia
Guerrero-Ramírez, Nathaly R.
Kotowska, Martyna M.
Lugli, Laynara Figueiredo
Marín, Cesar
McCulloch, Lindsay A.
Maeght, Jean-Luc
Metcalfe, Dan
Norby, Richard J.
Oliveira, Rafael S.
Powers, Jennifer S.
Reichert, Tatiana
Smith, Stuart William
Smith-Martin, Chris M.
Soper, Fiona M.
Toro, Laura
Umaña, Maria N.
Valverde-Barrantes, Oscar
Weemstra, Monique
Werden, Leland K.
Wong, Michelle
Wright, Cynthia L.
Wright, Stuart Joseph
Yaffar, Daniela
author2 Asian School of the Environment
author_facet Asian School of the Environment
Cusack, Daniela Francis
Addo-Danso, Shalom D.
Agee, Elizabeth A.
Andersen, Kelly M.
Arnaud, Marie
Batterman, Sarah A.
Brearley, Francis Q.
Ciochina, Mark I.
Cordeiro, Amanda L.
Dallstream, Caroline
Diaz-Toribio, Milton H.
Dietterich, Lee H.
Fisher, Joshua B.
Fleischer, Katrin
Fortunel, Claire
Fuchslueger, Lucia
Guerrero-Ramírez, Nathaly R.
Kotowska, Martyna M.
Lugli, Laynara Figueiredo
Marín, Cesar
McCulloch, Lindsay A.
Maeght, Jean-Luc
Metcalfe, Dan
Norby, Richard J.
Oliveira, Rafael S.
Powers, Jennifer S.
Reichert, Tatiana
Smith, Stuart William
Smith-Martin, Chris M.
Soper, Fiona M.
Toro, Laura
Umaña, Maria N.
Valverde-Barrantes, Oscar
Weemstra, Monique
Werden, Leland K.
Wong, Michelle
Wright, Cynthia L.
Wright, Stuart Joseph
Yaffar, Daniela
author_sort Cusack, Daniela Francis
collection NTU
description Vegetation processes are fundamentally limited by nutrient and water availability, the uptake of which is mediated by plant roots in terrestrial ecosystems. While tropical forests play a central role in global water, carbon, and nutrient cycling, we know very little about tradeoffs and synergies in root traits that respond to resource scarcity. Tropical trees face a unique set of resource limitations, with rock-derived nutrients and moisture seasonality governing many ecosystem functions, and nutrient versus water availability often separated spatially and temporally. Root traits that characterize biomass, depth distributions, production and phenology, morphology, physiology, chemistry, and symbiotic relationships can be predictive of plants’ capacities to access and acquire nutrients and water, with links to aboveground processes like transpiration, wood productivity, and leaf phenology. In this review, we identify an emerging trend in the literature that tropical fine root biomass and production in surface soils are greatest in infertile or sufficiently moist soils. We also identify interesting paradoxes in tropical forest root responses to changing resources that merit further exploration. For example, specific root length, which typically increases under resource scarcity to expand the volume of soil explored, instead can increase with greater base cation availability, both across natural tropical forest gradients and in fertilization experiments. Also, nutrient additions, rather than reducing mycorrhizal colonization of fine roots as might be expected, increased colonization rates under scenarios of water scarcity in some forests. Efforts to include fine root traits and functions in vegetation models have grown more sophisticated over time, yet there is a disconnect between the emphasis in models characterizing nutrient and water uptake rates and carbon costs versus the emphasis in field experiments on measuring root biomass, production, and morphology in response to changes in resource availability. Closer integration of field and modeling efforts could connect mechanistic investigation of fine-root dynamics to ecosystem-scale understanding of nutrient and water cycling, allowing us to better predict tropical forest-climate feedbacks.
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spelling ntu-10356/1625662023-02-28T16:39:32Z Tradeoffs and synergies in tropical forest root traits and dynamics for nutrient and water acquisition: field and modeling advances Cusack, Daniela Francis Addo-Danso, Shalom D. Agee, Elizabeth A. Andersen, Kelly M. Arnaud, Marie Batterman, Sarah A. Brearley, Francis Q. Ciochina, Mark I. Cordeiro, Amanda L. Dallstream, Caroline Diaz-Toribio, Milton H. Dietterich, Lee H. Fisher, Joshua B. Fleischer, Katrin Fortunel, Claire Fuchslueger, Lucia Guerrero-Ramírez, Nathaly R. Kotowska, Martyna M. Lugli, Laynara Figueiredo Marín, Cesar McCulloch, Lindsay A. Maeght, Jean-Luc Metcalfe, Dan Norby, Richard J. Oliveira, Rafael S. Powers, Jennifer S. Reichert, Tatiana Smith, Stuart William Smith-Martin, Chris M. Soper, Fiona M. Toro, Laura Umaña, Maria N. Valverde-Barrantes, Oscar Weemstra, Monique Werden, Leland K. Wong, Michelle Wright, Cynthia L. Wright, Stuart Joseph Yaffar, Daniela Asian School of the Environment Social sciences::Geography Fertility Drought Vegetation processes are fundamentally limited by nutrient and water availability, the uptake of which is mediated by plant roots in terrestrial ecosystems. While tropical forests play a central role in global water, carbon, and nutrient cycling, we know very little about tradeoffs and synergies in root traits that respond to resource scarcity. Tropical trees face a unique set of resource limitations, with rock-derived nutrients and moisture seasonality governing many ecosystem functions, and nutrient versus water availability often separated spatially and temporally. Root traits that characterize biomass, depth distributions, production and phenology, morphology, physiology, chemistry, and symbiotic relationships can be predictive of plants’ capacities to access and acquire nutrients and water, with links to aboveground processes like transpiration, wood productivity, and leaf phenology. In this review, we identify an emerging trend in the literature that tropical fine root biomass and production in surface soils are greatest in infertile or sufficiently moist soils. We also identify interesting paradoxes in tropical forest root responses to changing resources that merit further exploration. For example, specific root length, which typically increases under resource scarcity to expand the volume of soil explored, instead can increase with greater base cation availability, both across natural tropical forest gradients and in fertilization experiments. Also, nutrient additions, rather than reducing mycorrhizal colonization of fine roots as might be expected, increased colonization rates under scenarios of water scarcity in some forests. Efforts to include fine root traits and functions in vegetation models have grown more sophisticated over time, yet there is a disconnect between the emphasis in models characterizing nutrient and water uptake rates and carbon costs versus the emphasis in field experiments on measuring root biomass, production, and morphology in response to changes in resource availability. Closer integration of field and modeling efforts could connect mechanistic investigation of fine-root dynamics to ecosystem-scale understanding of nutrient and water cycling, allowing us to better predict tropical forest-climate feedbacks. Published version The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Biological and Environmental Research (DOE-BER), Terrestrial Ecosystem Science program supported this research under Early Career Award Number DESC0015898 to DFC, and DE-SC0008317 and DE-SC0016188 to JF and the NGEE-Tropics program support for EA, CW, and DY. JF contributed in part at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, California Institute of Technology. NG-R was supported by the Dorothea Schlözer Postdoctoral Programme of the Georg-August-Universität Goettingen. The Royal Society Leverhulme Africa Postdoctoral Fellowships. Grant No. LAF\R1\180025 provided funding to SA-D. Amazon FACE/CAPES grant 88887.154643/2017-00 provided support for LL. The US National Science Foundation (DEB-2016678) funded MU. European Union Horizon 2020 under the Mari Skłodovska-Curie grant agreement (No. 847693, REWIRE) provided funding to LF. Data storage and some synthesis activities were supported as part of the Next Generation Ecosystem Experiments – Tropics, funded by DOE-BER. National Science Foundation Research Coordination Grant INCyTE: DEB-1754126 to investigate nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. United Kingdom Natural Environment Research Council (NE/M019497/1, NE/S009663/1) and The Leverhulme Trust supported SAB. 2022-10-31T02:23:41Z 2022-10-31T02:23:41Z 2021 Journal Article Cusack, D. F., Addo-Danso, S. D., Agee, E. A., Andersen, K. M., Arnaud, M., Batterman, S. A., Brearley, F. Q., Ciochina, M. I., Cordeiro, A. L., Dallstream, C., Diaz-Toribio, M. H., Dietterich, L. H., Fisher, J. B., Fleischer, K., Fortunel, C., Fuchslueger, L., Guerrero-Ramírez, N. R., Kotowska, M. M., Lugli, L. F., ...Yaffar, D. (2021). Tradeoffs and synergies in tropical forest root traits and dynamics for nutrient and water acquisition: field and modeling advances. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 4, 704469-. https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2021.704469 2624-893X https://hdl.handle.net/10356/162566 10.3389/ffgc.2021.704469 2-s2.0-85121397532 4 704469 en Frontiers in Forests and Global Change © 2021 Cusack, Addo-Danso, Agee, Andersen, Arnaud, Batterman, Brearley, Ciochina, Cordeiro, Dallstream, Diaz-Toribio, Dietterich, Fisher, Fleischer, Fortunel, Fuchslueger, Guerrero-Ramírez, Kotowska, Lugli, Marín, McCulloch, Maeght, Metcalfe, Norby, Oliveira, Powers, Reichert, Smith, Smith-Martin, Soper, Toro, Umaña, Valverde-Barrantes, Weemstra, Werden, Wong, Wright, Wright and Yaffar. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. application/pdf
spellingShingle Social sciences::Geography
Fertility
Drought
Cusack, Daniela Francis
Addo-Danso, Shalom D.
Agee, Elizabeth A.
Andersen, Kelly M.
Arnaud, Marie
Batterman, Sarah A.
Brearley, Francis Q.
Ciochina, Mark I.
Cordeiro, Amanda L.
Dallstream, Caroline
Diaz-Toribio, Milton H.
Dietterich, Lee H.
Fisher, Joshua B.
Fleischer, Katrin
Fortunel, Claire
Fuchslueger, Lucia
Guerrero-Ramírez, Nathaly R.
Kotowska, Martyna M.
Lugli, Laynara Figueiredo
Marín, Cesar
McCulloch, Lindsay A.
Maeght, Jean-Luc
Metcalfe, Dan
Norby, Richard J.
Oliveira, Rafael S.
Powers, Jennifer S.
Reichert, Tatiana
Smith, Stuart William
Smith-Martin, Chris M.
Soper, Fiona M.
Toro, Laura
Umaña, Maria N.
Valverde-Barrantes, Oscar
Weemstra, Monique
Werden, Leland K.
Wong, Michelle
Wright, Cynthia L.
Wright, Stuart Joseph
Yaffar, Daniela
Tradeoffs and synergies in tropical forest root traits and dynamics for nutrient and water acquisition: field and modeling advances
title Tradeoffs and synergies in tropical forest root traits and dynamics for nutrient and water acquisition: field and modeling advances
title_full Tradeoffs and synergies in tropical forest root traits and dynamics for nutrient and water acquisition: field and modeling advances
title_fullStr Tradeoffs and synergies in tropical forest root traits and dynamics for nutrient and water acquisition: field and modeling advances
title_full_unstemmed Tradeoffs and synergies in tropical forest root traits and dynamics for nutrient and water acquisition: field and modeling advances
title_short Tradeoffs and synergies in tropical forest root traits and dynamics for nutrient and water acquisition: field and modeling advances
title_sort tradeoffs and synergies in tropical forest root traits and dynamics for nutrient and water acquisition field and modeling advances
topic Social sciences::Geography
Fertility
Drought
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/162566
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