Hydraulically-vulnerable trees survive on deep-water access during droughts in a tropical forest.

ABSTRACT: Deep-water access is arguably the most effective, but under-studied, mechanism that plants employ to survive during drought. Vulnerability to embolism and hydraulic safety margins can predict mortality risk at given levels of dehydration, but deep-water access may delay plant dehydration. Here, we tested the role of deep-water access in enabling survival within a diverse tropical forest community in Panama using a novel data-model approach. We inversely estimated the effective rooting depth (ERD, as the average depth of water extraction), for 29 canopy species by linking diameter growth dynamics (1990-2015) to vapor pressure deficit, water potentials in the whole-soil column, and leaf hydraulic vulnerability curves. We validated ERD estimates against existing isotopic data of potential wat

SUBMITTER: Chitra-Tarak R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8457149 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature