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. 2023 Feb 14:14:1089706.
doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1089706. eCollection 2023.

Sap flow and growth response of Norway spruce under long-term partial rainfall exclusion at low altitude

Ina Zavadilová  1   2 , Justyna Szatniewska  1   3 , Peter Petrík  1 , Oldřich Mauer  3 , Radek Pokorný  3 , Marko Stojanović  1
Affiliations

Sap flow and growth response of Norway spruce under long-term partial rainfall exclusion at low altitude

Ina Zavadilová et al. Front Plant Sci. .

Abstract

Introduction: Under ongoing climate change, more frequent and severe drought periods accompanied by heat waves are expected in the future. Under these conditions, the tree's survival is conditioned by fast recovery of functions after drought release. Therefore, in the presented study, we evaluated the effect of long-term water reduction in soil on tree water use and growth dynamics of Norway spruce.

Methods: The experiment was conducted in two young Norway spruce plots located on suboptimal sites at a low altitude of 440 m a.s.l. In the first plot (PE), 25% of precipitation throughfall was excluded since 2007, and the second one represented the control treatment with ambient conditions (PC). Tree sap flow, stem radial increment, and tree water deficit were monitored in two consecutive growing seasons: 2015-2016, with contrasting hydro-climatic conditions.

Results: Trees in both treatments showed relatively isohydric behavior reflected in a strong reduction of sap flow under the exceptional drought of 2015. Nevertheless, trees from PE treatment reduced sap flow faster than PC under decreasing soil water potential, exhibiting faster stomatal response. This led to a significantly lower sap flow of PE, compared to PC in 2015. The maximal sap flow rates were also lower for PE treatment, compared to PC. Both treatments experienced minimal radial growth during the 2015 drought and subsequent recovery of radial growth under the more the humid year of 2016. However, treatments did not differ significantly in stem radial increments within respective years.

Discussion: Precipitation exclusion treatment, therefore, led to water loss adjustment, but did not affect growth response to intense drought and growth recovery in the year after drought.

Keywords: Picea abies; isohydricity; precipitation exclusion; recovery; stem radial variation; tree ring width; tree water deficit; tree water use.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure1
Figure1
Location of the study (A), location of plots (treatments) and microclimatic station (green plot: control (PC); red plot: precipitation exclusion (PE); yellow square: microclimatic station; light green: forest area; grey: open field) (B), and the construction for rainfall exclusion in PE (C).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Microclimatic variables in 2015 and 2016 on the studied site. Daily sums of global radiation - GR (A), daily mean air temperature - Tair and vapor pressure deficit - VPD (B), daily precipitation - Rain and potential evapotranspiration - PET (C), cumulative precipitation - Raincum and cumulative potential evapotranspiration - PETcum (D). The difference between PETcum and Raincum is Cumulative Water Deficit (CWD).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Seasonal dynamics of specific sap flow - Q and potential evapotranspiration - PET (A), stem radial variation - SRV (bold colored line) and modelled growth line - GRO (black line) (B), daily tree water deficit - TWD (in absolute values) (C), and mean soil water potential – SWP and at depths: 10, 25 and 40 cm, in PC (upper) and PE (lower) (D) in the growing seasons: 2015 (left) and 2016 (right). The curves in A)-C) represent mean values ± confidence intervals.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Boxplots for values of modelled specific sap flow - Q (A), modelled tree water deficit - TWD (B), and annual values of radial growth - GRO (C). The data are expressed as medians (solid lines) and means (dots) of measured modeled values. The box boundaries mark the 25th and 75th percentiles, and the whiskers show the minimum and the maximum. Different letters indicate the statistically significant variation between the group means. The modeled values are derived from ARIMA model.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Responses of transformed specific sap flow Q to microclimatic conditions and transformed tree water deficit TWD in control (PC) and drought (PE) plots in 2015 and 2016: transformed global radiation GR (A), transformed vapor pressure deficit (VPD) (B), transformed tree water deficit TWD (C), and transformed mean soil water potential SWP (D). The values are derived from the Cochrane-Orcutt transformation.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Responses of transformed tree water deficit TWD to microclimatic conditions in control (PC) and drought (PE) stands in 2015 and 2016: transformed mean soil water potential SWP (A), and transformed vapor pressure deficit (VPD) (B). The values are derived from the Cochrane-Orcutt transformation.
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