Journal
FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
Volume 469, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2020.118159
Keywords
NSC; Subtropical evergreen trees; Throughfall exclusion; Tree life stages; Understory seedlings
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [31930072, 31600387, 31770559]
- 'Thousand Young Talents' Program in China
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratories LDRD program
- Department of Energy's Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiment (NGEE)-Tropics
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Nonstructural carbohydrates (NSC) play important roles in forest vulnerability to climate change, especially under increasing drought intensity and frequency. Understanding NSC dynamics is essential for accurately predicting the resistance and resilience of forests in response to drought. However, our knowledge of NSC responses to drought is still limited due to the lack of research in trees of different life stages. In this study, we conducted a throughfall exclusion experiment (TFE) with four subtropical evergreen tree species to examine drought effects on NSC in mature trees and understory seedlings. Our results showed the differential effects of drought on NSC dynamics of understory seedlings and mature trees. In the TFE experiment, mature trees of all four species were relatively homoeostatic with the insignificantly changed NSC pools, photosynthesis, and growth under the drought treatment compared to the control. In contrast, understory seedlings displayed significant decreases in total NSC and soluble sugars (-14.70 +/- 3.66% and -16.93 +/- 3.85%, respectively) with the exception of Lithocarpus glaber (L. glaber). The seedlings of L. glaber with the highest hydraulic resistance maintained or slightly increased NSC and its components in response to drought. Our study highlights the importance of life stage in assessing drought effects of trees on NSC storage and then forest C cycling, which could be incorporated into the dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) to better understand drought effects on forest C balance in the future.
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