Co-occurring woody species have diverse hydraulic strategies and mortality rates during an extreme drought.
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2018-03
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From 2011 to 2013, Texas experienced its worst drought in recorded history. This event provided a unique natural experiment to assess species-specific responses to extreme drought and mortality of four co-occurring woody species: Quercus fusiformis, Diospyros texana, Prosopis glandulosa, and Juniperus ashei. We examined hypothesized mechanisms that could promote these species' diverse mortality patterns using postdrought measurements on surviving trees coupled to retrospective process modelling. The species exhibited a wide range of gas exchange responses, hydraulic strategies, and mortality rates. Multiple proposed indices of mortality mechanisms were inconsistent with the observed mortality patterns across species, including measures of the degree of iso/anisohydry, photosynthesis, carbohydrate depletion, and hydraulic safety margins. Large losses of spring and summer whole-tree conductance (driven by belowground losses of conductance) and shallower rooting depths were associated with species that exhibited greater mortality. Based on this retrospective analysis, we suggest that species more vulnerable to drought were more likely to have succumbed to hydraulic failure belowground.
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Johnson, Daniel M, Jean-Christophe Domec, Z Carter Berry, Amanda M Schwantes, Katherine A McCulloh, David R Woodruff, H Wayne Polley, Remí Wortemann, et al. (2018). Co-occurring woody species have diverse hydraulic strategies and mortality rates during an extreme drought. Plant Cell Environ, 41(3). pp. 576–588. 10.1111/pce.13121 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/16147.
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Jean Christophe Domec
Bordeaux Sciences Agro in FRANCE (primary appointment)
Discovery of knowledge in Plant water relations, ecosystem ecology and ecohydrology, with special focus on: - Long-distance water transport under future climate; - Drought tolerance and avoidance; - Patterns of changes in structural and functional traits within individual plants. My goal as a researcher is to improve the fundamental science understanding of how plants and terrestrial ecosystems respond to climate changes, and to provide tree breeders with policy-relevant information. I have carried out research on interactions between soil water and plant water use in contrasting ecosystems, in cooperation with scientists at Bordeaux Sciences Agro in FRANCE (primary appointment), Duke University, Oregon State University, and the USDA Forest Service, Southern Global Change Program, recently renamed EFETAC (Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center).
Jennifer J. Swenson
Swenson's research tracks changes in terrestrial Earth's living surface at the landscape to region scale with remote sensing and geospatial analysis. Her interest include: how patterns and canopy structure are effected by drought, afforestation, and deforestation, patterns and climate shifts of ecosystem biodiversity, and providing access to practitioners to remotely sensed data and analysis. Prior to her 15 years in Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment, she held positions in NGOs (NatureServe in DC, EcoCiencia in Quito, Ecuador), as well as in the US Federal Government (US Forest Service-Oregon, National Park Service-Colorado). Her research has been supported by NASA, NSF, USDA and other institutions.
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