scholarly journals Non-structural carbohydrates mediate seasonal water stress across Amazon forests

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Signori-Müller ◽  
Rafael S. Oliveira ◽  
Fernanda de Vasconcellos Barros ◽  
Julia Valentim Tavares ◽  
Martin Gilpin ◽  
...  

AbstractNon-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.

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristihian Jarri Bayona-Rodríguez ◽  
Iván Ochoa-Cadavid ◽  
Hernán Mauricio Romero

Elaeis guineensis palms and its interspecific hybrid (E. oleifera x E. guineensis) were planted in 2004 in the Cuernavaca farm of Unipalma S.A., located in the municipality of Paratebueno (Cundinamarca, Colombia). The palms were planted in two fields: Mecasaragua and Aurora. The first field has never been irrigated, and the second one (Aurora) has always been flood-irrigated during the dry season according to the parameters of the plantation. In this study, physiological parameters (gas exchange and water potential) were assessed in three seasons of the year 2013 (dry season, dry-to-wet transition season and wet season). Significant gas exchange differences were found among the seasons in the field with no irrigation (Mecasaragua). Likewise, differences between the genetic materials were observed during the dry season. For example, the photosyn thesis decreased by 75% compared with the palms planted in the irrigated field. No differences among seasons or materials were found in the irrigated field (Aurora). E. guineensis palms were more sensitive to water stress compared with the OxG interspecific hybrid. Both genetic materials responded rapidly to the first rains by leveling their photosynthetic rates and demonstrated an excellent capacity to recover from water stress.


1985 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 809 ◽  
Author(s):  
I Vallis ◽  
DCI Peake ◽  
RK Jones ◽  
RL McCown

The fate of urea-N in cattle urine applied during the dry season (in August) to the pasture phase of a pasture-crop sequence at Katherine, N.T., was investigated. Cattle urine labelled with 15N-urea was applied to three sets of microplots to measure the following parameters: (a) amount and distribution of 15N remaining in the microplots during the remainder of the dry season with 0, 0.5, 1.0 and 5.0 t ha-1 of pasture residues present initially; (b) the effect of placing the urine 5 cm below the soil surface on the amount of 15N remaining during the dry season; (c) uptake of 15N by the pasture during the early part of the wet season (October to December) and uptake by sorghum sown directly into the killed pasture in January. Residual 15N in the surface soil (0-15 cm) after the sorghum crop was also measured. Of the applied 15N, 26% was lost after 1 day, 32% after 7 days and 46% after 63 days. Losses were not affected by the amount of pasture residues on the microplots when the urine was applied. Almost all of the I5N remaining in the microplots was in the 0-7.5-cm layer of soil, and 65-75% of this was mineral N. The dry-season losses of 15N were presumably through volatilization of ammonia, because leaching was absent and no loss of 15N occurred when the urine was placed 5 cm below the soil surface. Pasture growth killed at the end of December contained 6.2% of the applied 15N, the sorghum crop recovered only a further 2.1%, and after harvest of the sorghum crop the 0-15.0-cm layer of soil contained 23%. Thus about half of the 15N remaining in the soil-plant system to the 15.0 cm soil depth at the end of the dry season disappeared during the following wet season, either as a gaseous loss or by leaching deeper into the soil.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 8373
Author(s):  
Matilda Cresso ◽  
Nicola Clerici ◽  
Adriana Sanchez ◽  
Fernando Jaramillo

Paramo ecosystems are tropical alpine grasslands, located above 3000 m.a.s.l. in the Andean mountain range. Their unique vegetation and soil characteristics, in combination with low temperature and abundant precipitation, create the most advantageous conditions for regulating and storing surface and groundwater. However, increasing temperatures and changing patterns of precipitation due to greenhouse-gas-emission climate change are threatening these fragile environments. In this study, we used regional observations and downscaled data for precipitation and minimum and maximum temperature during the reference period 1960–1990 and simulations for the future period 2041–2060 to study the present and future extents of paramo ecosystems in the Chingaza National Park (CNP), nearby Colombia’s capital city, Bogotá. The historical data were used for establishing upper and lower precipitation and temperature boundaries to determine the locations where paramo ecosystems currently thrive. Our results found that increasing mean monthly temperatures and changing precipitation will render 39 to 52% of the current paramo extent in CNP unsuitable for these ecosystems during the dry season, and 13 to 34% during the wet season. The greatest loss of paramo area will occur during the dry season and for the representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenario 8.5, when both temperature and precipitation boundaries are more prone to be exceeded. Although our initial estimates show the future impact on paramos and the water security of Bogotá due to climate change, complex internal and external interactions in paramo ecosystems make it essential to study other influencing climatic parameters (e.g., soil, topography, wind, etc.) apart from temperature and precipitation.


2009 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Vernes ◽  
Lisa Claire Pope

We investigated timing of reproduction in a wild population of northern brown bandicoots (Isoodon macrourus) in the Australian Wet Tropics. Almost all births occurred during the late dry season and early wet season, and most adult females (78–96%) were carrying pouch young during those times. Litter sizes ranged from 1 to 6 pouch young (mean = 3.1) and was not influenced by season. Adult males had significantly larger testes in the late dry and early wet seasons, corresponding with the peak in births. Daylength was the only environmental factor that predicted the presence of a litter; when daylength exceeded 12 h, more than 70% of captured females were carrying pouch young, and most (94%) births were estimated to have occurred on days with >12 h of daylight. Various environmental factors have been proposed as a cue for breeding in I. macrourus, with daylength though to be the primary cue initiating breeding in temperate Australia, but temperature and rainfall thought to be more important in the tropics. Our data suggest that in the Australian Wet Tropics, increasing daylength in the late dry season acts as the primary cue for breeding.


2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 422-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Tachie-Obeng ◽  
◽  
Bruce Hewitson ◽  
Edwin Akonno Gyasi ◽  
Mark Kofi Abekoe ◽  
...  

The possibility of future climate change in Ghana has received much attention due to repeated droughts and floods over the last decades. The savanna zone which is described as the food basket of Ghana is highly susceptible to climate change impact. Scenarios from 20-year time slices of the near future – 2046-2065 – and the far future – 2081-2100 – climate change meant to help guide policy remain a challenge. Empirical downscaling performed at the local-scale of Wa District in the savanna zone of Ghana under the IPCC A2 SRES emissions scenario showed evidence of probable climate change with mean annual temperatures expected to increase over an estimated range of 1.5°C to 2.3°C in the near future, with number of cool nights becoming less frequent, especially during the Harmattan1 period. The dry season is expected to be warmer than the wet season, with high inter-annual variations projected in both maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) temperatures. Given an average of 1 day of Tmax > 40°C per month in the control period of 1961-2000, the number of hot days is expected to increase to 12 by 2046-2065. An increase in total rainfall is projected with possible shifts in distribution toward the end of the year, with a slight increase in rainfall during the dry season and an increase of rainfall at the onset and toward the end of the wet season. However, a decrease in June rainfall is projected in the wet season. The objective of this paper is to improve the understanding of future climate as a guide to local level medium-term development plans of effective adaptation options for Wa district in the savanna zone of Ghana.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos Longo ◽  
Sassan Saatchi ◽  
Michael Keller ◽  
Kevin Bowman ◽  
António Ferraz ◽  
...  

<p>Tropical forest degradation through selective logging, fragmentation, and understory fires substantially changes forest structure and composition.  In the Amazon, degradation is as widespread as deforestation; however, studies addressing the effects of forest degradation on tropical ecosystem functions are scarce. Here, we integrate small-footprint airborne lidar over the Brazilian Amazon (> 250,000 ha), collected between 2016–2018, with recent ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) land surface temperature and evapotranspiration products (70-m resolution, data acquired in 2018–2019) to investigate the role of forest structure, forest fragmentation, and disturbance history on dry-season land surface temperature and evapotranspiration.  During the dry season, degraded forests, especially those affected by multiple degradation events, are significantly warmer (up to 9.3°C) and show reduced evapotranspiration (10% less than intact forests). Likewise, forest near the edges (< 350m) experience the greatest warming (up to 6.5°C) and the greatest reduction (9%) in evapotranspiration. We also used the airborne lidar dataset to initialize the Ecosystem Demography Model (ED-2.2) to investigate the impact of degradation on the gross primary production (GPP), evapotranspiration (ET), and sensible heat flux (H) under a broader range of climate conditions, including severe droughts. Consistent with ECOSTRESS, the simulations during the dry season in typical years showed that severely degraded forests experienced water-stress with declines in ET (34% reduction), GPP (35% reduction), and increases of H (43% increases) and daily mean ground temperatures (up to 6.5°C) relative to intact forests.  In the model, the simulated changes are mostly driven by increased below-ground water stress, which can be attributed to the shallower rooting profile of degraded forests. However, relative to intact forest, the impact of degradation on energy, water, and carbon cycles markedly diminishes under extreme droughts such as 2015–2016, when all forests experience severe stress. Our results indicate the potentially important role of tropical forest degradation changing the carbon, water, and energy cycles in the Amazon, and consequently a much broader influence of land use activities on functioning of tropical ecosystems.</p>


2006 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony P. O'Grady ◽  
Derek Eamus ◽  
Peter G. Cook ◽  
Sebastien Lamontagne

Within Australia and globally there is considerable concern about the potential impacts of groundwater extraction on ecosystems dependent on groundwater. In this study we have combined heat pulse and isotopic techniques to assess groundwater use by riparian vegetation along the Daly River in the Northern Territory. The riparian forests of the Daly River exhibited considerable structural and floristic complexity. More than 40 tree species were recorded during vegetation surveys and these exhibited a range of leaf phonologies, implying complex patterns of water resource partitioning within the riparian forests. Water use was a function of species and season, and stand water use varied between 1.8 and 4.1 mm day–1. In general, however, water use tended to be higher in the wet season than during the dry season, reflecting the contribution to stand water use by dry-season deciduous tree species. There was a strong relationship between stand basal area and stand water use in the wet season, but the strength of this relationship was lower in the dry season. The amount of groundwater use, as determined by analysis of deuterium concentrations in xylem sap, was principally a function of position in the landscape. Trees at lower elevations, closer to the river, used more groundwater than trees higher on the levees. By using a combination of techniques we showed that riparian vegetation along the Daly River was highly groundwater dependent and that these water-use requirements need to be considered in regional management plans for groundwater.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 1193-1207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Pomposi ◽  
Yochanan Kushnir ◽  
Alessandra Giannini ◽  
Michela Biasutti

AbstractPrior research has shown that dry conditions tend to persist in the Sahel when El Niño develops. Yet, during the historic 2015 El Niño, Sahel summer precipitation was anomalously high, particularly in the second half of the season. This seeming inconsistency motivates a reexamination of the variability of precipitation during recent El Niño years. We identify and composite around two different outcomes for Sahel summer season: an anomalously wet season or an anomalously dry season as El Niño develops to its peak conditions over the observational record spanning 1950–2015. We find consistently cool temperatures across the global tropics outside the Niño-3.4 region when the Sahel is anomalously wet during El Niño years and a lack of cooling throughout the tropics when the Sahel is anomalously dry. The striking differences in oceanic surface temperatures between wet years and dry years are consistent with a rearrangement of the entire global circulation in favor of increased rainfall in West Africa despite the presence of El Niño.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kofi Frimpong-Anin ◽  
Michael K. Adjaloo ◽  
Peter K. Kwapong ◽  
William Oduro

This study investigated the position of staminodes around the style of cocoa flowers and the stability of cocoa flowers relative to pollination and seasonality. Cocoa flowers were categorized into converging, ≤1.20 mm; parallel, 1.21–2.40 mm, and splay ≥2.41 mm, depending on the distance between the staminode and style. Some flowers were hand pollinated while others were not and were excluded from insect visitors. Proportions of flowers of converging (56.0%), parallel (37.5%), and splay (6.5%) remained similar along the vertical plane of cocoa trees. Although pollination rates of flowers with splay staminodes were the lowest, the overall pollination success of cocoa trees was not significantly affected because of the small proportion of splay flowers.The stability of the cocoa flowers depended on both the season and pollination. During the dry season, unpollinated flowers of cocoa trees showed a flower-stability ratio of 72% on the second day, while the flower-stability ratio was 94% in the wet season. Pollinated (senescent) flowers had a stability ratio of 95% after 5 days during the wet season, but all pollinated flowers dropped after 5 days in the dry season, indicating that seasonal factors, such as water stress, can have dramatic effects on cocoa yields.


1994 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Rubio Scarano ◽  
José Henrique Cattânio ◽  
Robert M.M. Crawford

Root starch and glucose content were measured for young saplings of 18 Amazonian tidal várzea tree species during a dry season. The pattern of carbohydrate storage depended on the type of plant involved and soil topography which is directly linked to flood regime. Most plants showed high root carbohydrate content at this point in the dry season, however, several typically flood-tolerant species (particularly palm trees) presented a low root carbohydrate content, suggesting a strategy of acquiring reserves during the wet season to survive the dry season, when depletion occurs. Plant survival in these flood-prone forests seems to be the result of more than only one adaptive mechanism.


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