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Xu X, van der Sleen P, Groenendijk P, Vlam M, Medvigy D, Moorcroft P, Petticord D, Ma Y, Zuidema PA. Constraining long-term model predictions for woody growth using tropical tree rings. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 2024; 30:e17075. [PMID: 38273586 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.17075] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/18/2023] [Revised: 11/13/2023] [Accepted: 11/14/2023] [Indexed: 01/27/2024]
Abstract
The strength and persistence of the tropical carbon sink hinges on the long-term responses of woody growth to climatic variations and increasing CO2 . However, the sensitivity of tropical woody growth to these environmental changes is poorly understood, leading to large uncertainties in growth predictions. Here, we used tree ring records from a Southeast Asian tropical forest to constrain ED2.2-hydro, a terrestrial biosphere model with explicit vegetation demography. Specifically, we assessed individual-level woody growth responses to historical climate variability and increases in atmospheric CO2 (Ca ). When forced with historical Ca , ED2.2-hydro reproduced the magnitude of increases in intercellular CO2 concentration (a major determinant of photosynthesis) estimated from tree ring carbon isotope records. In contrast, simulated growth trends were considerably larger than those obtained from tree rings, suggesting that woody biomass production efficiency (WBPE = woody biomass production:gross primary productivity) was overestimated by the model. The estimated WBPE decline under increasing Ca based on model-data discrepancy was comparable to or stronger than (depending on tree species and size) the observed WBPE changes from a multi-year mature-forest CO2 fertilization experiment. In addition, we found that ED2.2-hydro generally overestimated climatic sensitivity of woody growth, especially for late-successional plant functional types. The model-data discrepancy in growth sensitivity to climate was likely caused by underestimating WBPE in hot and dry years due to commonly used model assumptions on carbon use efficiency and allocation. To our knowledge, this is the first study to constrain model predictions of individual tree-level growth sensitivity to Ca and climate against tropical tree-ring data. Our results suggest that improving model processes related to WBPE is crucial to obtain better predictions of tropical forest responses to droughts and increasing Ca . More accurate parameterization of WBPE will likely reduce the stimulation of woody growth by Ca rise predicted by biosphere models.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiangtao Xu
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
| | - Peter van der Sleen
- Forest Ecology & Forest Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Peter Groenendijk
- Department of Plant Biology, Institute of Biology, University of Campinas, UNICAMP, Campinas, SP, Brazil
| | - Mart Vlam
- Forest Ecology & Forest Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - David Medvigy
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA
| | - Paul Moorcroft
- Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Daniel Petticord
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
| | - Yixin Ma
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
| | - Pieter A Zuidema
- Forest Ecology & Forest Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
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Cushman KC, Albert LP, Norby RJ, Saatchi S. Innovations in plant science from integrative remote sensing research: an introduction to a Virtual Issue. THE NEW PHYTOLOGIST 2023; 240:1707-1711. [PMID: 37915249 DOI: 10.1111/nph.19237] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/16/2023] [Accepted: 08/16/2023] [Indexed: 11/03/2023]
Abstract
This article is an Editorial to the Virtual issue on ‘Remote sensing’ that includes the following papers Chavana‐Bryant et al. (2017), Coupel‐Ledru et al. (2022), Cushman & Machado (2020), Disney (2019), D'Odorico et al. (2020), Dong et al. (2022), Fischer et al. (2019), Gamon et al. (2023), Gu et al. (2019), Guillemot et al. (2020), Jucker (2021), Koh et al. (2022), Konings et al. (2019), Kothari et al. (2023), Martini et al. (2022), Richardson (2019), Santini et al. (2021), Schimel et al. (2019), Serbin et al. (2019), Smith et al. (2019, 2020), Still et al. (2021), Stovall et al. (2021), Wang et al. (2020), Wong et al. (2020), Wu et al. (2021), Wu et al. (2017), Wu et al. (2018), Wu et al. (2019), Xu et al. (2021), Yan et al. (2021). Access the Virtual Issue at www.newphytologist.com/virtualissues.
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Affiliation(s)
- K C Cushman
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91109, USA
| | - Loren P Albert
- College of Forestry, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA
| | - Richard J Norby
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA
| | - Sassan Saatchi
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91109, USA
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Increasing and widespread vulnerability of intact tropical rainforests to repeated droughts. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2022; 119:e2116626119. [PMID: 36067321 PMCID: PMC9477241 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2116626119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Intact tropical rainforests have been exposed to severe droughts in recent decades, which may threaten their integrity, their ability to sequester carbon, and their capacity to provide shelter for biodiversity. However, their response to droughts remains uncertain due to limited high-quality, long-term observations covering extensive areas. Here, we examined how the upper canopy of intact tropical rainforests has responded to drought events globally and during the past 3 decades. By developing a long pantropical time series (1992 to 2018) of monthly radar satellite observations, we show that repeated droughts caused a sustained decline in radar signal in 93%, 84%, and 88% of intact tropical rainforests in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, respectively. Sudden decreases in radar signal were detected around the 1997-1998, 2005, 2010, and 2015 droughts in tropical Americas; 1999-2000, 2004-2005, 2010-2011, and 2015 droughts in tropical Africa; and 1997-1998, 2006, and 2015 droughts in tropical Asia. Rainforests showed similar low resistance (the ability to maintain predrought condition when drought occurs) to severe droughts across continents, but American rainforests consistently showed the lowest resilience (the ability to return to predrought condition after the drought event). Moreover, while the resistance of intact tropical rainforests to drought is decreasing, albeit weakly in tropical Africa and Asia, forest resilience has not increased significantly. Our results therefore suggest the capacity of intact rainforests to withstand future droughts is limited. This has negative implications for climate change mitigation through forest-based climate solutions and the associated pledges made by countries under the Paris Agreement.
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De Kauwe MG, Sabot MEB, Medlyn BE, Pitman AJ, Meir P, Cernusak LA, Gallagher RV, Ukkola AM, Rifai SW, Choat B. Towards species-level forecasts of drought-induced tree mortality risk. THE NEW PHYTOLOGIST 2022; 235:94-110. [PMID: 35363880 PMCID: PMC9321630 DOI: 10.1111/nph.18129] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/08/2021] [Accepted: 03/28/2022] [Indexed: 05/14/2023]
Abstract
Predicting species-level responses to drought at the landscape scale is critical to reducing uncertainty in future terrestrial carbon and water cycle projections. We embedded a stomatal optimisation model in the Community Atmosphere Biosphere Land Exchange (CABLE) land surface model and parameterised the model for 15 canopy dominant eucalypt tree species across South-Eastern Australia (mean annual precipitation range: 344-1424 mm yr-1 ). We conducted three experiments: applying CABLE to the 2017-2019 drought; a 20% drier drought; and a 20% drier drought with a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2 ). The severity of the drought was highlighted as for at least 25% of their distribution ranges, 60% of species experienced leaf water potentials beyond the water potential at which 50% of hydraulic conductivity is lost due to embolism. We identified areas of severe hydraulic stress within-species' ranges, but we also pinpointed resilience in species found in predominantly semiarid areas. The importance of the role of CO2 in ameliorating drought stress was consistent across species. Our results represent an important advance in our capacity to forecast the resilience of individual tree species, providing an evidence base for decision-making around the resilience of restoration plantings or net-zero emission strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Manon E. B. Sabot
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate ExtremesSydneyNSW2052Australia
- Climate Change Research CentreUniversity of New South WalesSydneyNSW2052Australia
| | - Belinda E. Medlyn
- Hawkesbury Institute for the EnvironmentWestern Sydney UniversityLocked Bag 1797PenrithNSW2751Australia
| | - Andrew J. Pitman
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate ExtremesSydneyNSW2052Australia
- Climate Change Research CentreUniversity of New South WalesSydneyNSW2052Australia
| | - Patrick Meir
- School of GeosciencesThe University of EdinburghEdinburghEH9 3FFUK
| | - Lucas A. Cernusak
- College of Science and EngineeringJames Cook UniversityCairnsQld4878Australia
| | - Rachael V. Gallagher
- Hawkesbury Institute for the EnvironmentWestern Sydney UniversityLocked Bag 1797PenrithNSW2751Australia
| | - Anna M. Ukkola
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate ExtremesSydneyNSW2052Australia
- Climate Change Research CentreUniversity of New South WalesSydneyNSW2052Australia
| | - Sami W. Rifai
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate ExtremesSydneyNSW2052Australia
- Climate Change Research CentreUniversity of New South WalesSydneyNSW2052Australia
| | - Brendan Choat
- Hawkesbury Institute for the EnvironmentWestern Sydney UniversityLocked Bag 1797PenrithNSW2751Australia
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Konings AG, Saatchi SS, Frankenberg C, Keller M, Leshyk V, Anderegg WRL, Humphrey V, Matheny AM, Trugman A, Sack L, Agee E, Barnes ML, Binks O, Cawse‐Nicholson K, Christoffersen BO, Entekhabi D, Gentine P, Holtzman NM, Katul GG, Liu Y, Longo M, Martinez‐Vilalta J, McDowell N, Meir P, Mencuccini M, Mrad A, Novick KA, Oliveira RS, Siqueira P, Steele‐Dunne SC, Thompson DR, Wang Y, Wehr R, Wood JD, Xu X, Zuidema PA. Detecting forest response to droughts with global observations of vegetation water content. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 2021; 27:6005-6024. [PMID: 34478589 PMCID: PMC9293345 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15872] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/19/2021] [Accepted: 08/23/2021] [Indexed: 05/11/2023]
Abstract
Droughts in a warming climate have become more common and more extreme, making understanding forest responses to water stress increasingly pressing. Analysis of water stress in trees has long focused on water potential in xylem and leaves, which influences stomatal closure and water flow through the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. At the same time, changes of vegetation water content (VWC) are linked to a range of tree responses, including fluxes of water and carbon, mortality, flammability, and more. Unlike water potential, which requires demanding in situ measurements, VWC can be retrieved from remote sensing measurements, particularly at microwave frequencies using radar and radiometry. Here, we highlight key frontiers through which VWC has the potential to significantly increase our understanding of forest responses to water stress. To validate remote sensing observations of VWC at landscape scale and to better relate them to data assimilation model parameters, we introduce an ecosystem-scale analog of the pressure-volume curve, the non-linear relationship between average leaf or branch water potential and water content commonly used in plant hydraulics. The sources of variability in these ecosystem-scale pressure-volume curves and their relationship to forest response to water stress are discussed. We further show to what extent diel, seasonal, and decadal dynamics of VWC reflect variations in different processes relating the tree response to water stress. VWC can also be used for inferring belowground conditions-which are difficult to impossible to observe directly. Lastly, we discuss how a dedicated geostationary spaceborne observational system for VWC, when combined with existing datasets, can capture diel and seasonal water dynamics to advance the science and applications of global forest vulnerability to future droughts.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Sassan S. Saatchi
- Jet Propulsion LaboratoryCalifornia Institute of TechnologyPasadenaCAUSA
| | | | - Michael Keller
- Jet Propulsion LaboratoryCalifornia Institute of TechnologyPasadenaCAUSA
- United States Forest ServiceWashingtonDCUSA
| | | | | | | | | | - Anna Trugman
- University of California ‐ Santa BarbaraSanta BarbaraCAUSA
| | - Lawren Sack
- University of California ‐ Los AngelesLos AngelesCAUSA
| | | | | | - Oliver Binks
- The Australian National UniversityCanberraACTAustralia
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Marcos Longo
- Jet Propulsion LaboratoryCalifornia Institute of TechnologyPasadenaCAUSA
| | - Jordi Martinez‐Vilalta
- Centre de Recerca Ecològica i Aplicacions Forestals (CREAF)BarcelonaSpain
- Universitat Autònoma de BarcelonaBarcelonaSpain
| | - Nate McDowell
- Pacific Northwest National LaboratoryRichlandWAUSA
- Washington State UniversityPullmanWAUSA
| | - Patrick Meir
- The Australian National UniversityCanberraACTAustralia
- University of EdinburghEdinburghUK
| | - Maurizio Mencuccini
- Centre de Recerca Ecològica i Aplicacions Forestals (CREAF)BarcelonaSpain
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA)BarcelonaSpain
| | - Assaad Mrad
- University of California ‐ IrvineIrvineCAUSA
| | | | | | | | | | - David R. Thompson
- Jet Propulsion LaboratoryCalifornia Institute of TechnologyPasadenaCAUSA
| | - Yujie Wang
- California Institute of TechnologyPasadenaCAUSA
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Feldman AF, Chaparro D, Entekhabi D. Error Propagation in Microwave Soil Moisture and Vegetation Optical Depth Retrievals. IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING 2021; 14:11311-11323. [PMID: 35003512 PMCID: PMC8740529 DOI: 10.1109/jstars.2021.3124857] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Satellite soil moisture and vegetation optical depth [(VOD); related to the total vegetation water mass per unit area] are increasingly being used to study water relations in the soil-plant continuum across the globe. However, soil moisture and VOD are typically jointly estimated, where errors in the optimization approach can cause compensation between both variables and confound such studies. It is thus critical to quantify how satellite microwave measurement errors propagate into soil moisture and VOD. Such a study is especially important for VOD given limited investigations of whether VOD reflects in situ plant physiology. Furthermore, despite new approaches that constrain (or regularize) VOD dynamics to reduce soil moisture errors, there is limited study of whether regularization reduces VOD errors without obscuring true vegetation temporal dynamics. Here, we find that, across the globe, VOD is less robust to measurement error (more difficult for optimization methods to find the true solution) than soil moisture in their joint estimation. However, a moderate degree of regularization (via time-constrained VOD) reduces errors in VOD to a greater degree than soil moisture and reduces spurious soil moisture-VOD coupling. Furthermore, despite constraining VOD time dynamics, regularized VOD variations on subweekly scales are both closer to simulated true VOD time series and have global VOD post-rainfall responses with reduced error signatures compared to VOD retrievals without regularization. Ultimately, we recommend moderately regularized VOD for use in large scale studies of soil-plant water relations because it suppresses noise and spurious soil moisture-VOD coupling without removing the physical signal.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew F Feldman
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
| | - David Chaparro
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
| | - Dara Entekhabi
- CommSensLab, Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 08034 Barcelona, Spain
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Gerlein-Safdi C. Seeing dew deposition from satellites: leveraging microwave remote sensing for the study of water dynamics in and on plants. THE NEW PHYTOLOGIST 2021; 231:5-7. [PMID: 34060665 DOI: 10.1111/nph.17418] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
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