Siyan Ma

On the differential advantages of evergreenness and deciduousness in mediterranean oak woodlands: a flux perspective

We assessed the differential advantages of deciduousness and evergreenness by examining 26 site-years of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and energy flux measurements from five comparable oak woodlands in France, Italy, Portugal, and California (USA). On average, the evergreen and deciduous oak woodlands assimilated and respired similar amounts of carbon while using similar amounts of water. These results suggest that evergreen and deciduous woodlands have specific, and similar, ecological costs in mediterranean climates, and that both leaf habits are able to meet these costs. What are the mechanisms behind these findings? Deciduous oaks compensated for having a shorter growing season by attaining a greater capacity to assimilate carbon for a given amount of intercepted solar radiation during the well-watered spring period; at saturating light levels, deciduous oaks gained carbon at six times the rate of evergreen oaks. Otherwise, the two leaf habits experienced similar efficiencies in carbon use (the change in carbon respired per change in carbon assimilated), water use (the change in carbon assimilation per change in water evaporated), and rainfall use (the change in evaporation per change in rainfall). Overall, leaf area index, rather than leaf habit, was the significant factor in determining the absolute magnitude of carbon gained and water lost by each evergreen and deciduous oak woodland over an annual interval; the closed canopies assimilated and respired more carbon and transpired more water than the open canopies. Both deciduous and evergreen mediterranean oaks survive in their seasonally hot/dry, wet/ cool native range by ensuring that actual evaporation is less than the supply of water. This feat is accomplished by adjusting the leaf area index to reduce total water loss at the landscape scale, by down-regulating photosynthesis, respiration, and stomatal conductance with progressive seasonal soil water deficits, and by extending their root systems to tap groundwater.

Vegetation and ecological characteristics of mixed-conifer and Red Fir forests at the Teakettle Experimental Forest

References Anonymous. 1970. Recommendations for an international standard for a mapping method in bird census work.

How will land use affect air temperature in the surface boundary layer? Lessons learned from a comparative study on the energy balance of an oak savanna and annual grassland in California, USA

We investigated the effect of land use on differences in air temperature. We based our analysis on a decade of weather and energy flux measurements, collected over two contrasting landscapes, an oak savanna and an annual grassland, growing under the same climate conditions. Over the decade, the daily-averaged, potential air temperature above the aerodynamically rougher and optically darker oak savanna was 0.5°C warmer than that above the aerodynamically smoother and optically brighter annual grassland. However, air temperature differences were seasonal. Smallest differences in potential air temperature occurred towards the end of spring, when much of the soil moisture reservoir was depleted. Largest differences in potential air temperature occurred during the winter rain season when the grass was green and transpiring and when the trees were senescent or deciduous. To understand the effect of land use on the local climate, we examined the concomitant changes in net radiation, sensible and latent heat exchange, the aerodynamic roughness (Ra), the surface resistance to water transfer (Rs), aerodynamic surface temperature and the growth of the planetary boundary layer, with measurements and model computations. Overall, these biophysical variables provide us with mechanistic information to diagnose and predict how changes in air temperature will follow changes in land use or management. In conclusion, land use change is responsible for having a marked impact on the local climate of a region. At the local level, the change in the surface energy balance, towards a darker and rougher surface, will produce an additive increment to climate warming induced by a greater greenhouse gas burden in the atmosphere.

Soil Respiration at Dominant Patch Types within a Managed Northern Wisconsin Landscape

Soil respiration (SR), a substantial component of the forest carbon budget, has been studied extensively at the ecosystem, regional, continental, and global scales, but little progress has been made toward understanding SR over managed forest landscapes. Soil respiration is often influenced by soil temperature (Ts), soil moisture (Ms), and type of vegetation, and these factors vary widely among the patch types within a landscape. We measured SR, Ts, Ms, and litter depth (LD) during the 1999 and 2000 growing seasons within six dominant patch types (mature northern hardwoods, young northern hardwoods, clear-cuts, open-canopy Jack pine barrens, mature Jack pine, and mature red pine) on a managed forest landscape in northern Wisconsin, USA. We compared SR among and within the patch types and derived empirically based models that relate SR to Ts, Ms, and LD. Increased levels of soil moisture and higher temperatures in June–September 1999 may have accounted for the up to 37% overall higher SR than in this same period in 2000. In 2000, SR and Ts values were lower, and the sites may have been experiencing slight water limitations, but in general Ts was a much more accurate predictor of SR during this year. Empirical predictions of SR within each patch type derived from continuous Ts measurements were in close agreement with measured values of SR during 2000, but eight of 22 of the simulated values were significantly different (α = 0.05) from the rates measured in 1999. The young hardwoods consistently had the highest SR, whereas the pine barrens had the lowest. Results from our field studies and empirical models can help land managers assess landscape responses to potential disturbances and climatic changes.

Photosynthetic responses to temperature across leaf–canopy–ecosystem scales: a 15-year study in a Californian oak-grass savanna

Ecosystem CO2 fluxes measured with eddy-covariance techniques provide a new opportunity to retest functional responses of photosynthesis to abiotic factors at the ecosystem level, but examining the effects of one factor (e.g., temperature) on photosynthesis remains a challenge as other factors may confound under circumstances of natural experiments. In this study, we developed a data mining framework to analyze a set of ecosystem CO2 fluxes measured from three eddy-covariance towers, plus a suite of abiotic variables (e.g., temperature, solar radiation, air, and soil moisture) measured simultaneously, in a Californian oak-grass savanna from 2000 to 2015. Natural covariations of temperature and other factors caused remarkable confounding effects in two particular conditions: lower light intensity at lower temperatures and drier air and soil at higher temperatures. But such confounding effects may cancel out. At the ecosystem level, photosynthetic responses to temperature did follow a quadratic function on average. The optimum value of photosynthesis occurred within a narrow temperature range (i.e., optimum temperature, Topt): 20.6 ± 0.6, 18.5 ± 0.7, 19.2 ± 0.5, and 19.0 ± 0.6 °C for the oak canopy, understory grassland, entire savanna, and open grassland, respectively. This paradigm confirms that photosynthesis response to ambient temperature changes is a functional relationship consistent across leaf–canopy–ecosystem scales. Nevertheless, Topt can shift with variations in light intensity, air dryness, or soil moisture. These findings will pave the way to a direct determination of thermal optima and limits of ecosystem photosynthesis, which can in turn provide a rich resource for baseline thresholds and dynamic response functions required for predicting global carbon balance and geographic shifts of vegetative communities in response to climate change.