Ecosystem fluxes during drought and recovery in an experimental forest

• DOI: 10.1126/science.abj6789
• Publication Date: 2021-12-16T18:55:32Z
• Authors: Christiane Werner; Laura K. Meredith; S. Nemiah Ladd; Johannes Ingrisch; Angelika Kübert; Joost van Haren; Michael Bahn; Kinzie Bailey; Ines Bamberger; Matthias Beyer; Daniel Blomdahl; Joseph Byron; Erik Daber; Jason Deleeuw; Michaela A. Dippold; Jane Fudyma; Juliana Gil-Loaiza; Linnea K. Honeker; Jia Hu; Jianbei Huang; Thomas Klüpfel; Jordan Krechmer; Jürgen Kreuzwieser; Kathrin Kühnhammer; Marco M. Lehmann; Kathiravan Meeran; Pawel K. Misztal; Wei-Ren Ng; Eva Pfannerstill; Giovanni Pugliese; Gemma Purser; Joseph Roscioli; Lingling Shi; Malak Tfaily; Jonathan Williams
• Keywords: Topsoil

Severe droughts endanger ecosystem functioning worldwide. We investigated how drought affects carbon and water fluxes as well soil-plant-atmosphere interactions by tracing 13CO2 deep 2H2O label pulses volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in an enclosed experimental rainforest. Ecosystem dynamics were driven different plant functional group responses to drought. Drought-sensitive canopy trees dominated total but also exhibited the strongest response topsoil drying. Although all canopy-forming had access water, these reserves spared until late Belowground transport was slowed, yet allocation of fresh VOCs remained high. Atmospheric VOC composition reflected increasing stress dynamic interactions, potentially affecting atmospheric chemistry climate feedbacks. These distinct strategies thus modulate impacts susceptibility change.