ArticleThe Science of the total environment2023
Deep roots mitigate drought impacts on tropical trees despite limited quantitative contribution to transpiration.
Article in The Science of the total environment, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 72 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of emerging compound droughts on forests: A water supply and demand perspective.Plant biology (Stuttgart, Germany) · 2026Review
- Study on water use sources and ecohydrological niche characteristics of two dominant shrubs in the Tengger Desert.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- Continuous In-Situ Water Stable Isotopes Reveal Rapid Changes in Root Water Uptake by Fagus sylvatica During Severe Drought.Plant, cell & environment · 2025Article
- Embolism resistance supports the contribution of dry-season precipitation to transpiration in eastern Amazon forests.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- High Inter-Specific Diversity and Seasonality of Trunk Radial Growth in Trees Along an Afrotropical Elevational Gradient.Plant, cell & environment · 2025Article
- African Mahogany Under Saline Stress: An Analysis of the Transpiration Response at Different Salinity Levels.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Heartwood/Sapwood Characteristics ofPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Make African grasslands climate-change resilient.Communications earth & environment · 2025Article
- Article
- Leaf water content and water source partitioning reveal species-specific drought vulnerabilities in subtropical shrubs.Frontiers in plant science · 2025Article
- Global soil moisture dynamics: attribution of contributions and their association with GPP.Frontiers in plant science · 2025Article
- Effects of Drought on the Water Use Strategies of Pure and Mixed Shrubs in the Mu Us Sandy Land.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Two common pitfalls in the analysis of water-stable isotopologues with cryogenic vacuum extraction and cavity ring-down spectroscopy.Analytical science advances · 2024Article
- Contrasting Seasonal Variation of Photosynthesis in Evergreen and Deciduous Tree Species From a Tropical Forest.Physiologia plantarumArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Deep rooting is considered a central drought-mitigation trait with vast impact on ecosystem water cycling. Despite its importance, little is known about the overall quantitative water use via deep roots and dynamic shifts of water uptake depths with changing ambient conditions. Knowledge is especially sparse for tropical trees. Therefore, we conducted a drought, deep soil water labeling and re-wetting experiment at Biosphere 2 Tropical Rainforest. We used in situ methods to determine water stable isotope values in soil and tree water in high temporal resolution. Complemented by soil and stem water content and sap flow measurements we determined percentages and quantities of deep-water in total root water uptake dynamics of different tree species. All canopy trees had access to deep-water (max. uptake depth 3.3 m), with contributions to transpiration ranging between 21 % and 90 % during drought, when surface soil water availability was limited. Our results suggest that deep soil is an essential water source for tropical trees that delays potentially detrimental drops in plant water potentials and stem water content when surface soil water is limited and could hence mitigate the impacts of increasing drought occurrence and intensity as a consequence of climate change. Quantitatively, however, the amount of deep-water uptake was low due to the trees' reduction of sap flow during drought. Total water uptake largely followed surface soil water availability and trees switched back their uptake depth dynamically, from deep to shallow soils, following rainfall. Total transpiration fluxes were hence largely driven by precipitation input.
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