Improving Inferences from Hydrological Isotope Techniques

Plant water isotopic compositions are widely used to describe patterns of soils water uptake. Although valuable, the technique only provides relative uptake distributions, which can be misleading. Without information on total transpiration, the technique cannot address central questions on drought response, competition, and species coexistence.

Automated summary

Plant water isotopic compositions are useful for studying soil water uptake patterns, but they only offer relative uptake distributions and lack information on total transpiration. Therefore, this technique cannot address key questions regarding drought response, competition, and species coexistence.