Journal
NEW PHYTOLOGIST
Volume 205, Issue 3, Pages 1008-1014Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/nph.12907
Keywords
biosphere-atmosphere interactions; climate change; ecosystem shift; forest mortality; tree physiology; vegetation model
Categories
Funding
- NOAA Climate and Global Change Post-doctoral Fellowship
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Plant hydraulics mediate terrestrial woody plant productivity, influencing global water, carbon, and biogeochemical cycles, as well as ecosystem vulnerability to drought and climate change. While inter-specific differences in hydraulic traits are widely documented, intra-specific hydraulic variability is less well known and is important for predicting climate change impacts. Here, I present a conceptual framework for this intra-specific hydraulic trait variability, reviewing the mechanisms that drive variability and the consequences for vegetation response to climate change. I performed a meta-analysis on published studies (n=33) of intra-specific variation in a prominent hydraulic trait - water potential at which 50% stem conductivity is lost (P50) - and compared this variation to inter-specific variability within genera and plant functional types used by a dynamic global vegetation model. I found that intra-specific variability is of ecologically relevant magnitudes, equivalent to c. 33% of the inter-specific variability within a genus, and is larger in angiosperms than gymnosperms, although the limited number of studies highlights that more research is greatly needed. Furthermore, plant functional types were poorly situated to capture key differences in hydraulic traits across species, indicating a need to approach prediction of drought impacts from a trait-based, rather than functional type-based perspective.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available