Gap-filling carbon dioxide, water, energy, and methane fluxes in challenging ecosystems : comparing between methods, drivers, and gap-lengths

Acknowledgements The authors thank the FLUXNET-CH4 research groups for providing the CC-BY-4.0 (Tier one) open-access eddy covariance data (https://fluxnet.org/data/fluxnet-ch4-community-product/) and ERA5 (https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/reanalysis-datasets/era5) for providing meteorology reanalysis data. They also thank the ReddyProc (https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/R EddyProc/index.html) team, scikit-learn (https://scikit-learn.org/s table/install.html) team, and Xgboost team (https://xgboost.readthedocs.io/en/stable/python/python_api.html) for the packages that help the implementation and validation for gap-filling approaches. SZ and TH would like to acknowledge funding from Shell to support the PhD studentship. Rothamsted thanks BBSRC grants BBS/E/C/000I0320 and BBS/E/C/000J0100. The Eddy Covariance equipment deployed in this work was funded by CIEL (https://www.cielivestock.co.uk/) and the raw data is available on the Farm Platform Portal (https://nwfp.rothamsted.ac.uk/).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Tropical forest lianas have greater non-structural carbohydrate concentrations in the stem xylem than trees

Lianas (woody vines) are important components of tropical forests and are known to compete with host trees for resources, decrease tree growth and increase tree mortality. Given the observed increases in liana abundance in some forests and their impacts on forest function, an integrated understanding of carbon dynamics of lianas and liana-infested host trees is critical for improved prediction of tropical forest responses to climate change. Non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) are the main substrate for plant metabolism (e.g., growth, respiration), and have been implicated in enabling tree survival under environmental stress, but little is known of how they vary among life-forms or of how liana infestation impacts host tree NSC. We quantified stem total NSC (NSC) concentrations and its fractions (starch and soluble sugars) in trees without liana infestation, trees with more than 50% of the canopy covered by lianas, and the lianas infesting those trees. We hypothesized that i) liana infestation depletes NSC storage in host trees by reducing carbon assimilation due to competition for resources; ii) trees and lianas, which greatly differ in functional traits related to water transport and carbon uptake, would also have large differences in NSC storage, and that As water availability has a significant role in NSC dynamics of Amazonian tree species, we tested these hypotheses within a moist site in western Amazonia and a drier forest site in southern Amazonia. We did not find any difference in NSC, starch or soluble sugar concentrations between infested and non-infested trees, in either site. This result suggests that negative liana impact on trees may be mediated through mechanisms other than depletion of host tree NSC concentrations. We found lianas have higher stem NSC and starch than trees in both sites. The consistent differences in starch concentrations, a long term NSC reserve, between life forms across sites reflect differences in carbon gain and use of lianas and trees. Soluble sugar concentrations were higher in lianas than in trees in the moist site but indistinguishable between life forms in the dry site. The lack of difference in soluble sugars between trees and lianas in the dry site emphasize the importance of this NSC fraction for plant metabolism of plants occurring in water limited environments. Abstract in Portuguese and Spanish are available in the supplementary material. [Abstract copyright: © The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected].

Basin-wide variation in tree hydraulic safety margins predicts the carbon balance of Amazon forests

Funding: Data collection was largely funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) project TREMOR (NE/N004655/1) to D.G., E.G. and O.P., with further funds from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brasil (CAPES, finance code 001) to J.V.T. and a University of Leeds Climate Research Bursary Fund to J.V.T. D.G., E.G. and O.P. acknowledge further support from a NERC-funded consortium award (ARBOLES, NE/S011811/1). This paper is an outcome of J.V.T.’s doctoral thesis, which was sponsored by CAPES (GDE 99999.001293/2015-00). J.V.T. was previously supported by the NERC-funded ARBOLES project (NE/S011811/1) and is supported at present by the Swedish Research Council Vetenskapsrådet (grant no. 2019-03758 to R.M.). E.G., O.P. and D.G. acknowledge support from NERC-funded BIORED grant (NE/N012542/1). O.P. acknowledges support from an ERC Advanced Grant and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. R.S.O. was supported by a CNPq productivity scholarship, the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP-Microsoft 11/52072-0) and the US Department of Energy, project GoAmazon (FAPESP 2013/50531-2). M.M. acknowledges support from MINECO FUN2FUN (CGL2013-46808-R) and DRESS (CGL2017-89149-C2-1-R). C.S.-M., F.B.V. and P.R.L.B. were financed by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brasil (CAPES, finance code 001). C.S.-M. received a scholarship from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq 140353/2017-8) and CAPES (science without borders 88881.135316/2016-01). Y.M. acknowledges the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and ERC Advanced Investigator Grant (GEM-TRAITS, 321131) for supporting the Global Ecosystems Monitoring (GEM) network (gem.tropicalforests.ox.ac.uk), within which some of the field sites (KEN, TAM and ALP) are nested. The authors thank Brazil–USA Collaborative Research GoAmazon DOE-FAPESP-FAPEAM (FAPESP 2013/50533-5 to L.A.) and National Science Foundation (award DEB-1753973 to L. Alves). They thank Serrapilheira Serra-1709-18983 (to M.H.) and CNPq-PELD/POPA-441443/2016-8 (to L.G.) (P.I. Albertina Lima). They thank all the colleagues and grants mentioned elsewhere [8,36] that established, identified and measured the Amazon forest plots in the RAINFOR network analysed here. The authors particularly thank J. Lyod, S. Almeida, F. Brown, B. Vicenti, N. Silva and L. Alves. This work is an outcome approved Research Project no. 19 from ForestPlots.net, a collaborative initiative developed at the University of Leeds that unites researchers and the monitoring of their permanent plots from the world’s tropical forests [61]. The authros thank A. Levesley, K. Melgaço Ladvocat and G. Pickavance for ForestPlots.net management. They thank Y. Wang and J. Baker, respectively, for their help with the map and with the climatic data. The authors acknowledge the invaluable help of M. Brum for kindly providing the comparison of vulnerability curves based on PAD and on PLC shown in this manuscript. They thank J. Martinez-Vilalta for his comments on an early version of this manuscript. The authors also thank V. Hilares and the Asociación para la Investigación y Desarrollo Integral (AIDER, Puerto Maldonado, Peru); V. Saldaña and Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana (IIAP) for local field campaign support in Peru; E. Chavez and Noel Kempff Natural History Museum for local field campaign support in Bolivia; ICMBio, INPA/NAPPA/LBA COOMFLONA (Cooperativa mista da Flona Tapajós) and T. I. Bragança-Marituba for the research support.Tropical forests face increasing climate risk1,2, yet our ability to predict their response to climate change is limited by poor understanding of their resistance to water stress. Although xylem embolism resistance thresholds (for example, Ψ50) and hydraulic safety margins (for example, HSM50) are important predictors of drought-induced mortality risk3-5, little is known about how these vary across Earth's largest tropical forest. Here, we present a pan-Amazon, fully standardized hydraulic traits dataset and use it to assess regional variation in drought sensitivity and hydraulic trait ability to predict species distributions and long-term forest biomass accumulation. Parameters Ψ50 and HSM50 vary markedly across the Amazon and are related to average long-term rainfall characteristics. Both Ψ50 and HSM50 influence the biogeographical distribution of Amazon tree species. However, HSM50 was the only significant predictor of observed decadal-scale changes in forest biomass. Old-growth forests with wide HSM50 are gaining more biomass than are low HSM50 forests. We propose that this may be associated with a growth-mortality trade-off whereby trees in forests consisting of fast-growing species take greater hydraulic risks and face greater mortality risk. Moreover, in regions of more pronounced climatic change, we find evidence that forests are losing biomass, suggesting that species in these regions may be operating beyond their hydraulic limits. Continued climate change is likely to further reduce HSM50 in the Amazon6,7, with strong implications for the Amazon carbon sink.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Water relations of two tropical conifers

Orientador: Rafael Silva OliveiraDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de BiologiaResumo: Diversos modelos climáticos predizem mudanças no regime hídrico e secas extremas nos mais variados ecossistemas, dentre esses, as florestas tropicais nebulares (FTNs), que são apontadas como ambientes sensíveis às mudanças no clima. Nas FTNs a frequência e intensidade de neblina são determinantes na composição da vegetação. As predições são de que o aquecimento terrestre causará um deslocamento da área atual de ocorrência de neblina para altitudes maiores, acima da maioria das FTNs do mundo. Com diminuição da neblina nesses ambientes é provável que ocorra um aumento da evapotranspiração e estresse hídrico da vegetação, podendo haver mortalidade das plantas. Em nosso estudo investigamos as relações hídricas de duas coníferas que ocorrem em FTNs A. angustifolia e P. lambertii, além disso avaliamos se o ponto de perda de turgor (?tlp) é um bom preditor de mortalidade para essas espécies. Para compreendermos os efeitos da neblina no status hídrico de A. angustifolia avaliamos duas populações em altitudes diferentes, sendo elas, montanha (1950 m) e vale (1500 m). Os indivíduos localizados na montanha mantiveram potenciais hídricos menos negativos do que os localizados no vale, durante todo o período de monitoramento. Conduzimos um experimento em casa de vegetação para avaliar a resistência a seca de A. angustifolia e P. lambertii. Também avaliamos a importância da absorção de água da neblina pelas folhas (AAF) e do aporte hídrico diretamente no solo na recuperação do status hídrico dessas espécies depois de submetidas à secas em que seu potencial hídrico foliar (?Folha) chegou ao ponto de perda de turgor (?tlp). As duas espécies apresentaram diferentes estratégias de manutenção do status hídrico, A. angustifolia foi mais resistente à seca, sobrevivendo por até 17 semanas de seca P. lambertii sobreviveu a 12 semanas de seca, no entanto, esta espécie apresentou maior capacidade de manutenção do ?Folha quando a única fonte de água foi à neblina. O ?tlp foi um bom preditor de mortalidade para essas duas espéciesAbstract: Several climate models predict changes in the water regime and extreme droughts in a wide variety of ecosystems. Among these ecosystems, there are the tropical montane cloud forests (TMCFs), pointed as sensitive environments to climate changes. Frequency and intensity of fog are crucial to the composition of vegetation in TMCFs. Predictions are that global warming will cause a shift in fog occurrence from the current area to higher altitudes, above most TMCFs in the world. With the fog decrease in these areas it is likely to occur an increase in the evapotranspiration and water stress of the vegetation, which may result in plant mortality. In this research we look into water relations of two conifers that occur in TMCFs, A. angustifolia and P. lambertii. Furthermore, it is evaluated if the turgor loss point (?tlp) is a good mortality predictor for these two species. To comprehend the fog effects in A. angustifolia's water status we evaluate two populations in different altitudes: mountain (1950m) and valley (1500m). Individuals located in the mountain kept water potentials less negative than the ones located in the valley throughout the monitoring period. An experiment was conducted in greenhouse to evaluate the resistance to drought of A. angustifolia and P. lambertii. Were also evaluated the importance of fog water uptake by leaves (LWU) and of water input directly into the ground in the water status recovery of the species after being subjected to drought in which their leaf water potential (?Leaf) reached the turgor loss point (?tlp). Both species presented different strategies of water status maintenance. A. angustifolia was more resistant to drought, surviving for up to 17 weeks of it, while P. lambertii survived for 12. However, P. lambertii showed higher capacity of ?Leaf maintenance when the only source of water was fog. Turgor loss point was a good mortality predictor for these two speciesMestradoBiologia VegetalMestra em Biologia Vegeta

Non-structural carbohydrates mediate seasonal water stress across Amazon forests

Non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) are major substrates for plant metabolism and have been implicated in mediating drought-induced tree mortality. Despite their significance, NSC dynamics in tropical forests remain little studied. We present leaf and branch NSC data for 82 Amazon canopy tree species in six sites spanning a broad precipitation gradient. During the wet season, total NSC (NSCT) concentrations in both organs were remarkably similar across communities. However, NSCT and its soluble sugar (SS) and starch components varied much more across sites during the dry season. Notably, the proportion of leaf NSCT in the form of SS (SS:NSCT) increased greatly in the dry season in almost all species in the driest sites, implying an important role of SS in mediating water stress in these sites. This adjustment of leaf NSC balance was not observed in tree species less-adapted to water deficit, even under exceptionally dry conditions. Thus, leaf carbon metabolism may help to explain floristic sorting across water availability gradients in Amazonia and enable better prediction of forest responses to future climate change