Carbon and water cycles in forests: From plants hydraulic traits to ecosystem-scale water usage strategy

1. Background
2. PHT:
3. The idea: observed dynamic behavior
4. Modeling framework and explorative analysis  Scientific questions (2-3)
5. Data requirements/availability (ET sub-daily: VOD as proxy, LE as proxy)
6. Outlooks -> projections of development by models
 SPAC: Soil – Plant – Atmosphere Continuum

Ψ+  Ψ-

Ψt = Ψs + Ψ p + Ψ m + Ψ g
Ψs - Solute
Ψp - Pressure
Ψm - Matrix
Ψg - Gravity
 DROUGTH  ↓ψsoil (+ ↑VPD)
•Isohydric (ISO):
• keeps ψ rather constant
• high transpiration control  stomatal closure
• lower CO2 exchange  diminished photosynthesis
• CARBON STARVATION (duration)

•Anisohydric (ANISO):
• ψ drops to keep-up with ↓ψsoil + ↑VPD bg-20-1789-2023.pdf (copernicus.org)
• stomata still open till elevated stress
• transpiration and photosynthesis continue
• embolism/cavity-prone
• HYDRAULIC FAILURE (intensity)

Plant hydraulic traits are a keystone of the coupled C-H 2O cycles of the biosphere
 Why does it matters?

- Drougth and extreme hot events are predicted to increase[1]

- Such events are linked globally to an observed tree die-off in forests [2] and resulting reduced carbon uptake[3]

- Forests offset about 1/3 of anthropogenic emissions[4]

HOW FORESTS GLOBALLY ARE COPING WITH THIS THREAT IS OF EXTREME RELEVANCE FOR:
- THE GLOBAL CARBON BALANCE
- THE PERMANENCE OF FORESTS AS CARBON SINK
- THE LONG TERM APPLICATIONS OF NBS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

DEFINE, IN SPACE AND TIME AT THE ECOSYSTEM-LEVEL, WHICH HYDRAULIC STRATEGY ARE FORESTS ADOPTING GLOBALLY,
AND EXPLORE COVARIATION WITH OTHER SENSIBLE VARIABLES, WOULD GIVE INSIGHTS ON THE BEST TRADE-OFFS
FORESTS ARE ADOPTING BETWEEN C ABSORPTION AND WATER LOSS

[1] - A century of observations reveals increasing likelihood of continental-scale compound dry-hot extremes | Science Advances (2020)
[2] - Global field observations of tree die-off reveal hotter-drought fingerprint for Earth’s forests | Nature Communications (2022)
[3] - Drought and heat reduce forest carbon uptake | Nature Communications (2023)
[4] - Global maps of twenty-first century forest carbon fluxes | Nature Climate Change (2021)
 Ecosystem-scale Plant Hydraulic Traits (PHT): how?

Methodological approaches to distinguish PHT span from the using the HSM to avoid cavitation - like y50 - from literature[5] or
direct field measurements[6]. However, both methods are neither spatially-explicit or show some temporal dynamics.

Data-fusion of ground measurements (e.g. FLUXNET) and RS data (especially VOD) are obviously the current most used
methodologies[7-8-9-10], giving insights of spatially-explicit ecosystem-scale PHT[11].

VOD seems to be the most promising way to detect PHT, because of its relative
strong relationship with VWC, and thus plant/leaf y[12].

The use of VOD to detect PHT comes from two seminal papers.

One set the base of the relationship between predawn yL vs. midday yL[13].

The other exploited such relationship taking advantage of nightime (1.30AM)

and midday (1:30 PM) VOD acquisition[14].

[5] - Global convergence in the vulnerability of forests to drought | Nature (2012)

[6] - Predicting plant vulnerability to drought in biodiverse regions using functional traits (pnas.org) (2015)
[7] - Hydraulic diversity of forests regulates ecosystem resilience during drought | Nature (2018)
[8] - Interacting Effects of Leaf Water Potential and Biomass on Vegetation Optical Depth - Momen - 2017 - Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences - Wiley Online Library (2017)
[9] - BG - L-band vegetation optical depth as an indicator of plant water potential in a temperate deciduous forest stand (copernicus.org) (2021) gs to VPD (up) | psy50 (down)
[10] - Large diurnal compensatory effects mitigate the response of Amazonian forests to atmospheric warming and drying | Science Advances (2023)
[11] - HESS - Global ecosystem-scale plant hydraulic traits retrieved using model–data fusion (copernicus.org) (2021)
[12] - Can vegetation optical depth reflect changes in leaf water potential during soil moisture dry-down events? – ScienceDirect (2019)
[13] - A new look at water transport regulation in plants (wiley.com) (2014)
[14] - Global variations in ecosystem‐scale isohydricity (wiley.com) (2017)
- Land Parameter Retrieve Model on the Advanced
Microwave Scanning Radiometer-E (AMSR-E) (1:30AM and
1:30PM)
[13] - A new look at water transport regulation in plants (wiley.com) (2014)

- Seasonal-scale degree of isohydricity

Requires a steady-state
environmental conditions (e.g. VPD)
Λ = maximum transpiration rate
σ = relative sensitivity of the transpiration rate and plant hydraulic
conductance to declining water availability.
[14] - Global variations in ecosystem‐scale isohydricity (wiley.com) (2017)

Nighttime transpiration shut off allows the sap flux to refill the xylem,
aligning yL to yS thus, predawn yL ≈ yS.
Requires a complete xylem refill at 1:30 AM,
which is not always the case, further,
transpiration can also continue at night in
some species (up to 5%-30% of daytime)

“This empirically based linearization may add some

error to the estimated values of ecosystem-scale
isohydricity…”

d is the slope of AM and PM VOD and determines the ISO (~0) or ANISO (≥1)
- SIF OCO-3
- ECOSTRESS ET
- SIF, ET and WUESIF daily and seasonal (wet vs. dry) trends
- 2015-2021
- Spatially continuous, hourly SIF and ET:
(SIF_grid; ET_grid) = RF(FPAR, T, VDP, SM, Rad) Large diurnal compensatory effects mitigate the response of Amazonian forests to atmospheric warming and drying | Science Advances
 So far…
- Underline the importance of seasonal variation (wet season vs dry season)

- Give insights on the the daily variation at regional-scale

- Based on assumed linear relationship, steady state of environment, physiological assumptions to define PHT
Adopt sub-daily observed variation of ET or its proxy to define PHT (ISO/ANISO)
ACTUAL OBSERVED BEHAVIOR

- Instantaneous picture of the processes, not dynamic evolution

Compare multiple years dynamics of hydraulic strategy (ISO/ANISO)
Define, quantitatively, for each pixeli/ecosystemi the yearly dominant hydraulic trait based on observed daily behavior of ET (or its proxy)
[season variability] [standardized by VPD]
B
A C

A
D C

ET
ET

E
B
t1 t2
t1 t2 t3
Local solar time
Local solar time
A = max ET in t1 A = min OR 25th ET in t1
B = min ET in t2 B = max ET in t2
C = max ET in t3
ANISO = slopeC [-ve]
ISO = (slopeD) [+ve]

slopeE = compensation
2. The quantitative ISO and ANISO are computed for each ecosystem for each year to detect any trend.

Is the ecosystem consistent with the strategy? / Can we assign the ecosystem to a dominant strategy?

N
Y - Which are the strategy selectors?
- Which strategy shows a better WUE?
Does it shift towards the edge of the range?

Y N
- What controls the shift?
- How is the trend of WUE?
- Towards which edge the WUE is better?
 AIM
The overall goal of the analysis is to globally assess if at the ecosystem-scale, we are
witnessing a

Dynamic  shiftings in hydraulic behavior

Adaptation  WUE trends (↑↓)

to increasing water-stress.
 WUE

Trend ANISO a

slopeC
Observed ANISO

slopeD

WUE

Trend ISO

Observed ISO
b

In both a and b they tend to exacerbate their strategies to keep up with increasing water stress.

System a, however, is losing in WUE, showing less adaptatio capacity.

System b is keeping WUE pretty stable.

 Data requirements
Main:

- ET or proxy at sub-daily temporal resolution

Covariates for explorative analysis:

- General climate variables

- Forest composition (mixture, main species)
- Forest structure (height, density, stratification)
- VPD
- WUE (GPP/ET)
- Soil moisture
- Root:shoot
- Aridity index (various)
- Precipitation
- Air temperature
Evapotranspiration and turbulent fluxes (ipma.pt)

EGU2020-18108_presentation.pdf (copernicus.org)

MTG data | EUMETSAT

ESSD - Upscaled diurnal cycles of land–atmosphere fluxes: a new global half-hourly data product (copernicus.org)

- Random Forest (FLUXNET and environmental data)

- GPP
- LE
- NEE
-H
- 2001-2014
- 0.5°

ET = Le (W m-2) / l*
For example:

a total LE of 500 W m-2 h-1 = 1 800 000 J m-2 of energy (1W = 1J s-1) 
1 800 000 J m-2 /2257 J g-1) = 798 g m-2 = 0.798 mm (1 kg H20 m-2 = 1 mm).

*[latent heat of evaporation] (i.e. the amount of energy required to evaporate 1g or 1ml of water) which is 2257 J g -1 .

evaporation - FLUXNET15 - how to convert latent heat flux to actual evapotranspiration? - Earth Science Stack Exchange

R: Conversion between Latent Heat Flux and Evapotranspiration (r-project.org)

Emerging satellite observations for diurnal cycling of ecosystem processes | Nature
Plants
LP DAAC - Search (usgs.gov) – ET ECOSTRESS L3_ET_PT_JPL /
L3_ET_ALEXI:
- 70-km x 70-km at 52° N-S (ISS)
- Temporal resolution vary according to ISS  sample different hour of
the day in different days, thus “Despite the diurnal sampling capability,
ECOSTRESS and OCO-3 provide only one or few (or no) observations for
each location during a given day; therefore, capturing a large portion of
the diurnal cycle will require ISS overpasses over a relatively long period
(for example, weeks). Over such a period of time, the variations in
instantaneous LST, ET or SIF are caused by not only diurnal variations in
meteorological conditions and water/heat stress but also the day-to-day
variations in these factors, vegetation structure (or leaf area index)
and/or phenology, which can complicate diurnal cycle analyses to a
certain extent.”
ECOSTRESS: NASA's Next Generation Mission to Measure Evapotranspiration From the International Space Stat
ion - Fisher - 2020 - Water Resources Research - Wiley Online Library

Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3: Home (nasa.gov) – SIF

- 2 km spatial resolution at 52° N-S (ISS)
- “OCO-3 passes over any given location (at nadir) ~20-min earlier each
time, eventually sampling all sunlit hours.”

OCO-3, in combination with ECOSTRESS, provides cutting-edge insight

into ecosystem processes of SIF and ET and ultimately can be combined
as WUE, with high-resolution sampling throughout the day.
 Leng, J., Chen, J. M., Li, W., Luo, X., Xu, M., Liu, J., Wang, R., Rogers, C.,
Li, B., and Yan, Y.: Global datasets of hourly carbon and water fluxes
simulated using a satellite-based process model with dynamic
parameterizations, Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss. [preprint],
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2023-328, in review, 2023.

- 0,25° spatial resolution (about 27-km x 27-km)

- Hourly estimation global GPP and ET
- 2001 – 2020
- Terrestrial Biosphere Model – Biosphere-atmosphere
Exchange Process Simulator (BEPS) (optimization parameter for
m and V25cmax)
1) FLUXNET to upscale at monthly for each site m and V25cmax
2) Random forest to upscaling and grid m and V25cmax at
hourly steps
3) Estimating hourly GPP and ET with BEPS
 source product time_span time_res spat_res method cover

Lang et al. ET 2001-2020 hourly 0.25° (27km) modeling global

eu;
LSA-SAF ET 2012-2022 30' 3km from LE to ET africa; sa

Bodesheim
et al. LE 2001-2014 30' 0.5° (55km) modeling global

daily sampling
(1-5 days
ECOSTRESS ET 2018-current repass) 70km JPL-ALEXI 50° N-S

radiometric and
temporal
VODCA VOD 1987-2018 daily 0.25° (27km) aggregation global
Coupling between the terrestrial carbon and water cycles—a review – IOPscience

Global variations in ecosystem‐scale isohydricity (wiley.com)

The role of height‐driven constraints and compensations on tree vulnerability to drought (wiley.com)

VOD 1:30AM-1:30PM & 06:00AM-06:00PM

Reliability of using vegetation optical depth for estimating decadal and interannual carbon dynamics – ScienceDirect

VOD-PSY-l
Can vegetation optical depth reflect changes in leaf water potential during soil moisture dry-down events? – ScienceDirect

BG - L-band vegetation optical depth as an indicator of plant water potential in a temperate deciduous forest stand (copernic
us.org)

Interacting Effects of Leaf Water Potential and Biomass on Vegetation Optical Depth - Momen - 2017 - Journal of Geophysical
Research:
Biogeosciences - Wiley Online Library
 - Define hydraulic trait with hydraulic safety margins (HSM): compromise between stomatal closure and xylem
vulnerability
Predicting plant vulnerability to drought in biodiverse regions using functional traits (pnas.org)
Global convergence in the vulnerability of forests to drought | Nature
Hydraulic diversity of forests regulates ecosystem resilience during drought | Nature
HESS - Global ecosystem-scale plant hydraulic traits retrieved using model–data fusion (copernicus.org) Model-data fusion (w/ VOD ↔ VWC)
A new look at water transport regulation in plants (wiley.com) Predawn yL vs. midday yL
Can vegetation optical depth reflect changes in leaf water potential during soil moisture dry-down events? - ScienceDirect

- For each day of the dry season/day with: a) aridity index (AI) <0.5, OR b) Standardized Precipitation–Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI)
<-0,67 (Drought resistance enhanced by tree species diversity in global forests | Nature Geoscience); extrapolate the daily-hourly ET trend (
Hourly potential evapotranspiration at 0.1° resolution for the global land surface from 1981-present | Scientific Data (nature.com) ) and calculate the average ET of
three timeframes of 2-3 hours length, e.g. t1 (8-11), t2 (12-15), t3 (17-20):
o ISO: t1 > t2 < t3 (e.g. 80-40-55)
methods to discern between a bell-shaped vs a bimodal distribution?
o ANISO: t1 < t2 > t3 (e.g. 60-100-65)
NOT A CATEGORIGAL CLASS, BUT RATHER A CONTINUUM

o DATA-DRIVEN OBSERVATIONS
 SCIENTIFIC QUESTIONS

- During the analysed time-series, and given a binned continuum from more ISO to ANISO:
- Is the system consistent to a given strategy (stays within the range), or it shifts from one strategy to another (plasticity)?
- If it shifts from a strategy to another, which is/are the variables that act/s as strategy selector/s? Is the WUE getting better or worse?
- If it stays within the range, but shifts from both edges of the range, what drives these shifts? How WUE changes from one edge to the other?
- Overall, which strategy shows a better WUE , if any? Trade-off for C sequestration. (Global Change Biology | Environmental Change Journal | Wiley Online Library)
- Globally, is there a strategy that is prevailing to the other (e.g. increasing its area)? If yes, what are the drivers?
- Among the most vulnerable water-stressed areas (e.g. aridity index <0.5), is there a prevalent strategy? I would expect that areas more vulnerable to drought adopt a
more ISO strategy because they are lower in SM.
- What about the differences between diurnal vs seasonal variability? (e.g. diurnal gradients in water potential are kept relatively constant, but the system exhibits high
seasonal variability of leaf water potential).
- After a quantified drought event, which strategy, if any, seems to give more resilience to the system showing a faster and full recovery?

 Potential drivers/covariates:
 Forest composition/diversity (e.g. main species, % mixture, …) Diversity OK
 Forest structure (e.g. height, density, stratification, …) Height OK
 Soil moisture/Soil type I would expect that ANISO strategy occurs with high VPD but with a relatively sufficient SM.
 Root:shoot I would expect > R/S in ANISO to improve water absorption to compensate water loss from transpiration
 Aridity index/Climate water deficit
 Precipitation (annual distribution)
 Air temperature
 Continentality index (Climate drivers of Arctic tundra variability and change using an indicators framework - IOPscience)
 Disturbances (outbreakes, wildfires, windthrows)
Define, quantitatively, for each pixeli/ecosystemi the yearly dominant hydraulic trait based on observed daily behavior of ET (or its proxy)

OLD OLD OLD OLD

[season variability] [standardized by VPD]
B

A DANISO
A C

D C

ET
ET

E
B
t1 t2 t3
t1 t2 t3
Local solar time
Local solar time
A = max ET in t1 A = 25th ET in t1
B = min ET in t2 B = max ET in t2
C = max ET in t3 C = 75th ET in t3

ISO = (slopeD) ANISO = DANISO = B - avg(A;C)

slopeE = compensation