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1. Rapid increases in shrubland and forest intrinsic water-use efficiency during an ongoing megadrought

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2118052118  

   Kannenberg, Steven A.; Driscoll, Avery W.; Szejner, Paul; Anderegg, William R.; Ehleringer, James R. (December 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Globally, intrinsic water-use efficiency (iWUE) has risen dramatically over the past century in concert with increases in atmospheric CO 2 concentration. This increase could be further accelerated by long-term drought events, such as the ongoing multidecadal “megadrought” in the American Southwest. However, direct measurements of iWUE in this region are rare and largely constrained to trees, which may bias estimates of iWUE trends toward more mesic, high elevation areas and neglect the responses of other key plant functional types such as shrubs that are dominant across much of the region. Here, we found evidence that iWUE is increasing in the Southwest at one of the fastest rates documented due to the recent drying trend. These increases were particularly large across three common shrub species, which had a greater iWUE sensitivity to aridity than Pinus ponderosa , a common tree species in the western United States. The sensitivity of both shrub and tree iWUE to variability in atmospheric aridity exceeded their sensitivity to increasing atmospheric [CO 2 ]. The shift to more water-efficient vegetation would be, all else being equal, a net positive for plant health. However, ongoing trends toward lower plant density, diminished growth, and increasing vegetation mortality across the Southwest indicate that this increase in iWUE is unlikely to offset the negative impacts of aridification. 

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2. Physiological and life history changes associated with seasonal adaptation in the cactophilic Drosophila mojavensis

   https://doi.org/10.1242/bio.059610  

   Shaible, Tierney M; Matzkin, Luciano M (October 2022, Biology Open)

   ABSTRACT Many insects inhabiting temperate climates are faced with changing environmental conditions throughout the year. Depending on the species, these environmental fluctuations can be experienced within a single generation or across multiple generations. Strategies for dealing with these seasonal changes vary across populations. Drosophila mojavensis is a cactophilic Drosophila species endemic to the Sonoran Desert. The Sonoran Desert regularly reaches temperatures of 50°C in the summer months. As individuals of this population are rare to collect in the summer months, we simulated the cycling temperatures experienced by D. mojavensis in the Sonoran Desert from April to July (four generations) in a temperature- and light-controlled chamber, to understand the physiological and life history changes that allow this population to withstand these conditions. In contrast to our hypothesis of a summer aestivation, we found that D. mojavensis continue to reproduce during the summer months, albeit with lower viability, but the adult survivorship of the population is highly reduced during this period. As expected, stress resistance increased during the summer months in both the adult and the larval stages. This study examines several strategies for withstanding the Sonoran Desert summer conditions which may be informative in the study of other desert endemic species. 

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3. Impacts of climate and tree morphology on tree-ring stable isotopes in central Mongolia

   https://doi.org/10.1093/treephys/tpac142  

   Leland, Caroline; Andreu-Hayles, Laia; Cook, Edward R; Anchukaitis, Kevin J; Byambasuren, Oyunsanaa; Davi, Nicole; Hessl, Amy; Martin-Benito, Dario; Nachin, Baatarbileg; Pederson, Neil (December 2022, Tree Physiology)

   Cernusak, Lucas (Ed.)

   Abstract Recent climate extremes in Mongolia have ignited a renewed interest in understanding past climate variability over centennial and longer time scales across north-central Asia. Tree-ring width records have been extensively studied in Mongolia as proxies for climate reconstruction, however, the climate and environmental signals of tree-ring stable isotopes from this region need to be further explored. Here, we evaluated a 182-year record of tree-ring δ13C and δ18O from Siberian Pine (Pinus sibirica Du Tour) from a xeric site in central Mongolia (Khorgo Lava) to elucidate the environmental factors modulating these parameters. First, we analyzed the climate sensitivity of tree-ring δ13C and δ18O at Khorgo Lava for comparison with ring-width records, which have been instrumental in reconstructing hydroclimate in central Mongolia over two millennia. We also compared stable isotope records of trees with partial cambial dieback (‘strip-bark morphology’), a feature of long-lived conifers growing on resource-limited sites, and trees with a full cambium (‘whole-bark morphology’), to assess the inferred leaf-level physiological behavior of these trees. We found that interannual variability in tree-ring δ13C and δ18O reflected summer hydroclimatic variability, and captured recent, extreme drought conditions, thereby complementing ring-width records. The tree-ring δ18O records also had a spring temperature signal and thus expanded the window of climate information recorded by these trees. Over longer time scales, strip-bark trees had an increasing trend in ring-widths, δ13C (and intrinsic water-use efficiency, iWUE) and δ18O, relative to whole-bark trees. Our results suggest that increases in iWUE at this site might be related to a combination of leaf-level physiological responses to increasing atmospheric CO2, recent drought, and stem morphological changes. Our study underscores the potential of stable isotopes for broadening our understanding of past climate in north-central Asia. However, further studies are needed to understand how stem morphological changes might impact stable isotopic trends. 

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4. The North American Monsoon buffers forests against the ongoing megadrought in the Southwestern United States

   https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16762  

   Strange, Brandon M.; Monson, Russell K.; Szejner, Paul; Ehleringer, Jim; Hu, Jia (June 2023, Global Change Biology)

   Abstract The US Southwest has been entrenched in a two‐decade‐long megadrought (MD), the most severe since 800 CE, which threatens the long‐term vitality and persistence of regional montane forests. Here, we report that in the face of record low winter precipitation and increasing atmospheric aridity, seasonal activity of the North American Monsoon (NAM) climate system brings sufficient precipitation during the height of the summer to alleviate extreme tree water stress. We studied seasonally resolved, tree‐ring stable carbon isotope ratios across a 57‐year time series (1960–2017) in 17 Ponderosa pine forests distributed across the NAM geographic domain. Our study focused on the isotope dynamics of latewood (LW), which is produced in association with NAM rains. During the MD, populations growing within the core region of the NAM operated at lower intrinsic and higher evaporative water‐use efficiencies (WUE_iand WUE_E, respectively), compared to populations growing in the periphery of the NAM domain, indicating less physiological water stress in those populations with access to NAM moisture. The disparities in water‐use efficiencies in periphery populations are due to a higher atmospheric vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and reduced access to summer soil moisture. The buffering advantage of the NAM, however, is weakening. We observed that since the MD, the relationship between WUE_iand WUE_Ein forests within the core NAM domain is shifting toward a drought response similar to forests on the periphery of the NAM. After correcting for past increases in the atmospheric CO₂concentration, we were able to isolate the LW time‐series responses to climate alone. This showed that the shift in the relation between WUE_iand WUE_Ewas driven by the extreme increases in MD‐associated VPD, with little advantageous influence on stomatal conductance from increases in atmospheric CO₂concentration. 

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5. The greening of the Northern Great Plains and its biogeochemical precursors

   https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15115  

   Brookshire, E. N. Jack; Stoy, Paul C.; Currey, Bryce; Finney, Bruce (May 2020, Global Change Biology)

   Abstract Vegetation greenness has increased across much of the global land surface over recent decades. This trend is projected to continue—particularly in northern latitudes—but future greening may be constrained by nutrient availability needed for plant carbon (C) assimilation in response to CO₂enrichment (eCO₂). eCO₂impacts foliar chemistry and function, yet the relative strengths of these effects versus climate in driving patterns of vegetative greening remain uncertain. Here we combine satellite measurements of greening with a 135 year record of plant C and nitrogen (N) concentrations and stable isotope ratios (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N) in the Northern Great Plains (NGP) of North America to examine N constraints on greening. We document significant greening over the past two decades with the highest proportional increases in net greening occurring in the dries and warmest areas. In contrast to the climate dependency of greening, we find spatially uniform increases in leaf‐level intercellular CO₂and intrinsic water use efficiency that track rising atmospheric CO₂. Despite large spatial variation in greening, we find sustained and climate‐independent declines in foliar N over the last century. Parallel declines in foliar δ¹⁵N and increases in C:N ratios point to diminished N availability as the likely cause. The simultaneous increase in greening and decline in foliar N across our study area points to increased N use efficiency (NUE) over the last two decades. However, our results suggest that plant NUE responses are likely insufficient to sustain observed greening trends in NGP grasslands in the future. 

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