The Response of Carbon Uptake to Soil Moisture Stress: Adaptation to Climatic Aridity.

ABSTRACT: The coupling between carbon uptake and water loss through stomata implies that gross primary production (GPP) can be limited by soil water availability through reduced leaf area and/or stomatal conductance. Ecosystem and land-surface models commonly assume that GPP is highest under well-watered conditions and apply a stress function to reduce GPP as soil moisture declines. Optimality considerations, however, suggest that the stress function should depend on climatic aridity: ecosystems adapted to more arid climates should use water more conservatively when soil moisture is high, but maintain unchanged GPP down to a lower critical soil-moisture threshold. We use eddy-covariance flux data to test this hypothesis. We investigate how the light-use efficiency (LUE) of GPP depends on soil moistu

SUBMITTER: Mengoli G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11892089 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature