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Forests
Special Issues
Effect of Drought on Forests—Plant Water Relations and Ecological Consequences
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Effect of Drought on Forests—Plant Water Relations and Ecological Consequences

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecophysiology and Biology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2017) | Viewed by 20172

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. John Grace

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3FF, Midlothian, UK
Prof. Dr. Maurizio Mencuccini

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), E-08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès), Barcelona, Spain

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We expect that climate change will impact profoundly on the Earth’s vegetation. All regions are predicted to become warmer, and many parts of the world will suffer reductions in precipitation. Climatic variability will increase and droughts will become more common. This will have implications for the distribution, productivity and carbon balance of the world’s forests.

Although the general principles of plant water relations—the transport of water in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum and its control by stomata—are well understood, new cutting-edge research indicates important gaps in our understanding. In particular, we know little about the circumstances that trigger hydraulic failure, and the capacity of trees to recover; nor do we understand the capacity of trees to access deep water. At a broader scale, we need to refine our use of remote sensing to detect the onset and impact of drought, and to track the course of recovery.

The time is ripe to put together existing knowledge from several disciplines and to evaluate the general picture. The questions that we seek to answer in this Special Issue range in scale and include:

  1. Where and when does hydraulic failure occur?
  2. Why are some species more sensitive than others?
  3. How does the tree sense water shortage and what are its main responses?
  4. What can we learn from long-term drought experiments?
  5. How do flux towers help us to understand the dynamic response to drought?
  6. What are the best remotely sensed indices to track the impact of drought?
  7. What determines the transition from forest to savanna?
  8. What are the key processes which should be represented in models?
  9. How will forests respond to drought at regional scales?
  10. How will biodiversity be influenced by drought?

We invite authors for this Special Issue to address these questions. We welcome manuscripts reporting (i) reviews of controversial topics, (ii) meta-analysis of already-published work, and (iii) original investigations

Prof. Dr. John Grace
Prof. Dr. Maurizio Mencuccini
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Drought
  • stomatal control
  • soil-plant-atmosphere continuum
  • climate change
  • carbon balance
  • soil respiration
  • decomposition
  • water indices
  • water potential
  • flux towers
  • long-term experiments
  • forest-savanna transition

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

3610 KiB  
Article
Growing Season Stem Water Status Assessment of Qinghai Spruce through the Sap Flow and Stem Radial Variations in the Qilian Mountains of China
by Quanyan Tian, Zhibin He, Shengchun Xiao, Jun Du, Xiaomei Peng, Longfei Chen, Pengfei Lin, Xi Zhu and Aijun Ding
Forests 2018, 9(1), 2; https://doi.org/10.3390/f9010002 - 22 Dec 2017
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 4283
Abstract
Global climate change is likely to change precipitation patterns with consequences for tree water use and growth in semi-arid areas. However, little is known about the effects of variability in precipitation on growth- and water-related physiological processes of native trees in dry areas [...] Read more.
Global climate change is likely to change precipitation patterns with consequences for tree water use and growth in semi-arid areas. However, little is known about the effects of variability in precipitation on growth- and water-related physiological processes of native trees in dry areas of northwestern China. In this study, sap flow and stem radial variability in four Qinghai spruce trees (Picea crassifolia) were monitored in the Qilian Mountains, China. Tree water deficit (ΔW) and basal area increment (BAI) were calculated using stem radial variation; water-use efficiency (WUE) was then estimated as the ratio of BAI and sap flow (Jt). The results showed that sap flow density (Js) increased logarithmically with increasing ΔW when ΔW < 50 μm, and then gradually stabilized. Multiple factor generalized additive models (GAM) showed that Js was closely related to all measured environmental variables except for daily mean temperature and relative air humidity. ΔW was related to the minimum daily temperature and soil water content. WUE exhibited higher values in early July. Low WUE was observed under conditions of prolonged dry weather, but it quickly increased during rainy days. WUE decreased after precipitation events due to high transpiration. We concluded that, in these semi-arid areas, precipitation is the most important controlling factor in tree growth and transpiration. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effect of Drought on Forests—Plant Water Relations and Ecological Consequences)
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3384 KiB  
Article
Responses of Contrasting Tree Functional Types to Air Warming and Drought
by Elisabet Martínez-Sancho, Lizeth K. Vásconez Navas, Hannes Seidel, Isabel Dorado-Liñán and Annette Menzel
Forests 2017, 8(11), 450; https://doi.org/10.3390/f8110450 - 17 Nov 2017
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 5936
Abstract
Climate change-induced rise of air temperatures and the increase of extreme climatic events, such as droughts, will largely affect plant growth and hydraulics, leading to mortality events all over the globe. In this study, we investigated the growth and hydraulic responses of seedlings [...] Read more.
Climate change-induced rise of air temperatures and the increase of extreme climatic events, such as droughts, will largely affect plant growth and hydraulics, leading to mortality events all over the globe. In this study, we investigated the growth and hydraulic responses of seedlings of contrasting functional types. Pinus sylvestris, Quercus spp. and Castanea sativa seedlings were grown in a common garden experiment under four treatments: control, air warming, drought and their combination during two consecutive growing periods. Height and diameter increments, stomatal conductance and stem water potentials were measured during both growing seasons. Additionally, hydraulic parameters such as xylem-specific native and maximum hydraulic conductivities, and native percentage of loss of conductivity were measured at the end of the entire experiment. Our results clearly pointed to different adaptive strategies of the studied species. Scots pine displayed a relatively isohydric behavior with a strict stomata control prohibiting native embolism whereas sweet chestnut and oak as relatively anisohydric species displayed an increased loss of native conductivity as a results of low water potentials. Seasonal timing of shoot and diameter growth also differed among functional types influencing drought impacts. Additionally, the possibility of embolism reversal seemed to be limited under the study conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effect of Drought on Forests—Plant Water Relations and Ecological Consequences)
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3745 KiB  
Article
Monitoring Changes in Water Use Efficiency to Understand Drought Induced Tree Mortality
by Sparkle L. Malone
Forests 2017, 8(10), 365; https://doi.org/10.3390/f8100365 - 26 Sep 2017
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 4733
Abstract
Forests are becoming increasingly vulnerable to rising tree mortality rates in response to warming and drought. In California, the most severe drought on record occurred from 2012–2016 and high tree mortality rates were observed in response to this prolonged drought. Differences in satellite-derived [...] Read more.
Forests are becoming increasingly vulnerable to rising tree mortality rates in response to warming and drought. In California, the most severe drought on record occurred from 2012–2016 and high tree mortality rates were observed in response to this prolonged drought. Differences in satellite-derived estimates of water-use efficiency (WUE) under normal (i.e., WUEBASELINE) and drought conditions (ΔWUE = WUE2014 − WUEBASELINE) captured variation in drought resilience, and is used here to understand patterns in tree mortality. Across California forests, a low WUEBASELINE under normal conditions was indicative of a low drought resilience and was associated with increasing tree mortality rates. Forested areas with high drought frequency in recent years (2002–2015) and lower WUEBASELINE were the most vulnerable to high post-drought tree mortality. Post drought tree mortality peaked in 2015 and tree mortality was detected in areas where bark beetles were active. Our results show that spatial and temporal changes in WUE can signal shifts in ecosystem resilience and that water-limited forests are sensitive to temperature- and precipitation-driven drought stress. Considering that forests with low resilience will be poised for dieback in the future if climates continue to feature rising temperatures without compensating increases in precipitation, it is becoming increasingly important that we understand drought vulnerability at the ecosystem level and how it changes over time with climate conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effect of Drought on Forests—Plant Water Relations and Ecological Consequences)
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702 KiB  
Article
Effects of Soil Water and Nitrogen on the Stand Volume of Four Hybrid Populus tomentosa Clones
by Jia Lei Zhu, Hui Juan Bo, Xuan Li, Lian Jun Song, Jiang Wang, Li Shui Nie and Ju Tian
Forests 2017, 8(7), 250; https://doi.org/10.3390/f8070250 - 14 Jul 2017
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 4525
Abstract
With the aim of improving poplar timber production, a successive 8-year irrigation and fertilization factorial experiment with three blocks was designed to measure the response of Populus tomentosa stands to water and nitrogen in Huabei Plain, China. Specifically, we examined the responses of [...] Read more.
With the aim of improving poplar timber production, a successive 8-year irrigation and fertilization factorial experiment with three blocks was designed to measure the response of Populus tomentosa stands to water and nitrogen in Huabei Plain, China. Specifically, we examined the responses of four P. tomentosa clones (P. tomentosa BT17, S86, B331, and 1316) to three irrigation levels (45%, 60%, and 75% above field capacity), as irrigation thresholds, and four N levels (0, 80, 160, and 240 g per plant). The results showed that both irrigation and nitrogen had significant effects in terms of improving clone stand volume. Further, we demonstrated positive interactions between irrigation and nitrogen. The stand volume increment of the four hybrid clones varied from 104.53 ± 19.84 to 191.35 ± 30.56 m3/ha in the descending order S86 > B331 > BT17 > 1316. With increasing irrigation level, the average stand volume of the four clones increased significantly from 120.46 ± 5.23 to 158.53 ± 21.72 m3/ha. When nitrogen level was increased from 0 to 240 g/plant, the average stand volume increment of the four clones increased from 126.04 ± 8.75 to 156.16 ± 26.01 m3/ha, respectively. Our results suggest that a comprehensive and specific management program is needed to improve poplar timber production. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effect of Drought on Forests—Plant Water Relations and Ecological Consequences)
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