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Title: Competition for light and water in a coupled soil-plant system

Journal Article · · Advances in Water Resources
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [3]
  1. ETH Zurich, Zurich (Switzerland); Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States)
  2. Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States)
  3. Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States)
  4. Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States); Univ. of Bordeaux, Gradignan (France)
  5. Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States); Univ. of Padova, Padova (Italy)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Here, it is generally accepted that resource availability shapes the structure and function of many ecosystems. Within the soil-plant-atmosphere (SPA) system, resource availability fluctuates in space and time whereas access to resources by individuals is further impacted by plant-to-plant competition. Likewise, transport and transformation of resources within an individual plant is governed by numerous interacting biotic and abiotic processes. The work here explores the co-limitations on water losses and carbon uptake within the SPA arising from fluctuating resource availability and competition. In particular, the goal is to unfold the interplay between plant access and competition for water and light, as well as the impact of transport/redistribution processes on leaf-level carbon assimilation and water fluxes within forest stands. A framework is proposed that couples a three-dimensional representation of soil-root exchanges with a one-dimensional description of stem water flow and storage, canopy photosynthesis, and transpiration. The model links soil moisture redistribution, root water uptake, xylem water flow and storage, leaf potential and stomatal conductance as driven by supply and demand for water and carbon. The model is then used to investigate plant drought resilience of overstory-understory trees simultaneously competing for water and light. Simulation results reveal that understory-overstory interactions increase ecosystem resilience to drought (i.e. stand-level carbon assimilation rates and water fluxes can be sustained at lower root-zone soil water potentials). This resilience enhancement originates from reduced transpiration (due to shading) and hydraulic redistribution in soil supporting photosynthesis over prolonged periods of drought. In particular, the presence of different rooting systems generates localized hydraulic redistribution fluxes that sustain understory transpiration through overstory-understory interactions. Such complex SPA dynamics cannot be properly summarized by equivalent ecosystem-scale Resistor-Capacitor (RC) rep- resentation. However our results show that, with proper averaging across water flow paths, RC models can provide reasonable estimates of stand-level water and carbon fluxes during inter-storm periods.

Research Organization:
Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0006967; SC0011461
OSTI ID:
1375728
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1495727
Journal Information:
Advances in Water Resources, Vol. 108, Issue C; ISSN 0309-1708
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 28 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (8)

A New Simulation Framework for Soil-Root Interaction, Evaporation, Root Growth, and Solute Transport journal January 2018
Modelling water fluxes in plants: from tissues to biosphere journal February 2019
An efficient three-dimensional rhizosphere modeling capability to study the effect of root system architecture on soil water and reactive transport journal June 2019
Modeling the Translocation and Transformation of Chemicals in the Soil‐Plant Continuum: A Dynamic Plant Uptake Module for the HYDRUS Model journal November 2019
EcH 2 O-iso 1.0: water isotopes and age tracking in a process-based, distributed ecohydrological model journal January 2018
Xylem–phloem hydraulic coupling explains multiple osmoregulatory responses to salt stress journal June 2019
Effect of Wheat Straw as a Cover Crop on the Chlorophyll, Seed, and Oilseed Yield of Trigonella foeunm graecum L under Water Deficiency and Weed Competition journal November 2019
A new simulation framework for soil-root interaction, evaporation, root growth, and solute transport collection January 2018

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Ecohydrology
Light-water competition
Overstory-understory
Soil-plant modeling
Upscaling