Search for: All records

Remote sensing holds promise for ecosystem‐level monitoring of plant drought stress but is limited by uncertain linkages between physiological stress and remotely sensed metrics of water content. Here, we investigate the stability of relationships between water potential (Ψ) and water content (measured in situ and via repeat airborne VSWIR imaging) over diel, seasonal, and spatial variation in two xeric oak tree species. We also compare these field‐based relationships with ones established in laboratory settings that might be used as calibration. Due to confounding physiological processes related to growth, both in situ and remotely sensed metrics lacked consistent relationships with stress when measured across space or through time. Relationships between water content and physiological drought stress measured over the growing season were stronger and more closely related to established laboratory‐based drydown methods than those measured across space (i.e., between wet trees and dry trees). These results provide insight into the utility of “space for time” approaches in remote sensing and demonstrate both important limitations and the potential power of high temporal resolution remote sensing for detecting drought stress. 

Summary Observational evidence indicates that tree leaf area may acclimate in response to changes in water availability to alleviate hydraulic stress. However, the underlying mechanisms driving leaf area changes and consequences of different leaf area allocation strategies remain unknown.Here, we use a trait‐based hydraulically enabled tree model with two endmember leaf area allocation strategies, aimed at either maximizing carbon gain or moderating hydraulic stress. We examined the impacts of these strategies on future plant stress and productivity.Allocating leaf area to maximize carbon gain increased productivity with high CO₂, but systematically increased hydraulic stress. Following an allocation strategy to avoid increased future hydraulic stress missed out on 26% of the potential future net primary productivity in some geographies. Both endmember leaf area allocation strategies resulted in leaf area decreases under future climate scenarios, contrary to Earth system model (ESM) predictions.Leaf area acclimation to avoid increased hydraulic stress (and potentially the risk of accelerated mortality) was possible, but led to reduced carbon gain. Accounting for plant hydraulic effects on canopy acclimation in ESMs could limit or reverse current projections of future increases in leaf area, with consequences for the carbon and water cycles, and surface energy budgets. 

Data from repeated measurements of predawn and midday water potentials on Quercus agrifolia and Quercus douglassi trees at Sedgwick Reserve, CA, USA from 2022 - 2024. The data includes the following columns: Column name Description individual_id Unique numeric ID for individual tree site Name of site location, represents a spatially distinct group of trees species Quercus agrifolia and Quercus douglassii date date of data collection, in YYYYMMDD pd_md Indicates whether measurements were taken at predawn (pd, 1-3 hours before sunrise) or midday (md, within 1.5 hours of solar noon) water_potential_mean Mean water potential measurements for each tree/date/time (MPa). water_potential_sd Standard deviation of water potential measurements for each tree/date/time (MPa) water_potential_n Number of water potential measurements for each tree/date/time latitude Location of individual tree, latitude in decimal degrees longitude Location of individual tree, longitude in decimal degrees coord_system EPSG:4326-WGS 84 For details on collection methods, see: Boving I, Allen J, Brodrick PG, Chadwick KD, Trugman A, Anderegg LDL. The Unstable Relationship Between Drought Status and Leaf Water Content Complicates the Remote Sensing of Tree Drought Stress. Glob Chang Biol. 2025 Apr;31(4):e70188. doi: 10.1111/gcb.70188. PMID: 40249004; PMCID: PMC12007071. 

Increasing heatwaves are threatening forest ecosystems globally. Leaf thermal regulation and tolerance are important for plant survival during heatwaves, though the interaction between these processes and water availability is unclear. Genotypes of the widely distributed foundation tree speciesPopulus fremontiiwere studied in a controlled common garden during a record summer heatwave—where air temperature exceeded 48 °C. When water was not limiting, all genotypes cooled leaves 2 to 5 °C below air temperatures. Homeothermic cooling was disrupted for weeks following a 72-h reduction in soil water, resulting in leaf temperatures rising 3 °C above air temperature and 1.3 °C above leaf thresholds for physiological damage, despite the water stress having little effect on leaf water potentials. Tradeoffs between leaf thermal safety and hydraulic safety emerged but, regardless of water use strategy, all genotypes experienced significant leaf mortality following water stress. Genotypes from warmer climates showed greater leaf cooling and less leaf mortality after water stress in comparison with genotypes from cooler climates. These results illustrate how brief soil water limitation disrupts leaf thermal regulation and potentially compromises plant survival during extreme heatwaves, thus providing insight into future scenarios in which ecosystems will be challenged with extreme heat and unreliable soil water access. 

Abstract Two decades of widespread drought-induced forest mortality events on every forested continent have raised the specter of future unpredictable, rapid ecosystem changes in 21^stcentury forests. Yet our ability to predict drought stress, much less drought-induced mortality across the landscape remains limited. This uncertainty stems at least in part from an incomplete understanding of within-species variation in hydraulic physiology, which reflects the interaction of genetic differentiation among populations (ecotypic variation) and phenotypic plasticity in response to growth environment. We examined among-population genetic differentiation in a number of morphological and hydraulic traits in California blue oak (Quercus douglasii) using a 30 year old common garden. We then compared this genetic trait differentiation and trait-trait integration to wild phenotypes in the field from the original source populations. We found remarkably limited among-population genetic differentiation in all traits in the common garden, but considerable site-to-site variation in the field. However, it was difficult to explain trait variation in the field using site climate variables, suggesting that gridded climate data does not capture the drivers of plasticity in drought physiology in this species. Trait-trait relationships were also considerably stronger in the field than in the garden, particularly links between leaf morphology, leaf hydraulic efficiency and stem hydraulic efficiency. Indeed, while twelve of 45 potential trait-trait relationships showed significant wild phenotypic correlations, only four relationships showed both genetic and phenotypic correlations, and five relationships showed significantly different genetic and phenotypic correlations. Collectively, our results demonstrate limited ecotypic variation in drought-related physiology but considerable geographic variation in physiology and phenotypic integration in the wild, both driven largely by plasticity. 

Climate change is stressing many forests around the globe, yet some tree species may be able to persist through acclimation and adaptation to new environmental conditions. The ability of a tree to acclimate during its lifetime through changes in physiology and functional traits, defined here as its acclimation potential, is not well known. We investigated the acclimation potential of trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides) and ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) trees by examining within-species variation in drought response functional traits across both space and time, and how trait variation influences drought-induced tree mortality. We measured xylem tension, morphological traits, and physiological traits on mature trees in southwestern Colorado, USA across a climate gradient that spanned the distribution limits of each species and three years with large differences in climate. Trembling aspen functional traits showed high within-species variation, and osmotic adjustment and carbon isotope discrimination were key determinants for increased drought tolerance in dry sites and in dry years. However, trembling aspen trees at low elevation were pushed past their drought tolerance limit during the severe 2018 drought year, as elevated mortality occurred. Higher specific leaf area during drought was correlated with higher percentages of canopy dieback the following year. Ponderosa pine functional traits showed less within-species variation, though osmotic adjustment was also a key mechanism for increased drought tolerance. Remarkably, almost all traits varied more year-to-year than across elevation in both species. Our results shed light on the scope and limits of intraspecific trait variation for mediating drought responses in key southwestern US tree species and will help improve our ability to model and predict forest responses to climate change.  Data were collected during the summers of 2014, 2018, and 2019. Many of the functional traits were measured on samples processed in a laboratory.  

Biogeographic history can set initial conditions for vegetation community assemblages that determine their climate responses at broad extents that land surface models attempt to forecast. Numerous studies have indicated that evolutionarily conserved biochemical, structural, and other functional attributes of plant species are captured in visible-to-short wavelength infrared, 400 to 2,500 nm, reflectance properties of vegetation. Here, we present a remotely sensed phylogenetic clustering and an evolutionary framework to accommodate spectra, distributions, and traits. Spectral properties evolutionarily conserved in plants provide the opportunity to spatially aggregate species into lineages (interpreted as “lineage functional types” or LFT) with improved classification accuracy. In this study, we use Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer data from the 2013 Hyperspectral Infrared Imager campaign over the southern Sierra Nevada, California flight box, to investigate the potential for incorporating evolutionary thinking into landcover classification. We link the airborne hyperspectral data with vegetation plot data from 1372 surveys and a phylogeny representing 1,572 species. Despite temporal and spatial differences in our training data, we classified plant lineages with moderate reliability (Kappa = 0.76) and overall classification accuracy of 80.9%. We present an assessment of classification error and detail study limitations to facilitate future LFT development. This work demonstrates that lineage-based methods may be a promising way to leverage the new-generation high-resolution and high return-interval hyperspectral data planned for the forthcoming satellite missions with sparsely sampled existing ground-based ecological data.