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Summary Increasing atmospheric CO2is changing the dynamics of tropical savanna vegetation. C3trees and grasses are known to experience CO2fertilization, whereas responses to CO2by C4grasses are more ambiguous.Here, we sample stable carbon isotope trends in herbarium collections of South African C4and C3grasses to reconstruct13C discrimination.We found that C3grasses showed no trends in13C discrimination over the past century but that C4grasses increased their13C discrimination through time, especially since 1950. These changes were most strongly linked to changes in atmospheric CO2rather than to trends in rainfall climatology or temperature.Combined with previously published evidence that grass biomass has increased in C4‐dominated savannas, these trends suggest that increasing water‐use efficiency due to CO2fertilization may be changing C4plant–water relations. CO2fertilization of C4grasses may thus be a neglected pathway for anthropogenic global change in tropical savanna ecosystems.
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African savanna grasses outperform trees across the full spectrum of soil moisture availability
Summary Models of tree–grass coexistence in savannas make different assumptions about the relative performance of trees and grasses under wet vs dry conditions. We quantified transpiration and drought tolerance traits in 26 tree and 19 grass species from the African savanna biome across a gradient of soil water potentials to test for a trade‐off between water use under wet conditions and drought tolerance.We measured whole‐plant hourly transpiration in a growth chamber and quantified drought tolerance using leaf osmotic potential (Ψosm). We also quantified whole‐plant water‐use efficiency (WUE) and relative growth rate (RGR) under well‐watered conditions.Grasses transpired twice as much as trees on a leaf‐mass basis across all soil water potentials. Grasses also had a lower Ψosmthan trees, indicating higher drought tolerance in the former. Higher grass transpiration and WUE combined to largely explain the threefold RGR advantage in grasses.Our results suggest that grasses outperform trees under a wide range of conditions, and that there is no evidence for a trade‐off in water‐use patterns in wet vs dry soils. This work will help inform mechanistic models of water use in savanna ecosystems, providing much‐needed whole‐plant parameter estimates for African species.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1928860
- PAR ID:
- 10418514
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- New Phytologist
- Volume:
- 239
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0028-646X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 66-74
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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