Abstract
Hydraulic lift, the transport of water from deep in the soil through plant root systems into the drier upper soil layers, has been demonstrated in several woody plant species. Here the volume of water involved in hydraulic lift by a mature sugar maple tree is estimated. Twenty-four intact soil cores were collected from the vicinity of a sugar maple tree at the same positions at which thermocouple psychrometers had been placed. Desorption measurements were made on the soil cores and the data were fitted to the Campbell relation for soil matric potential ψ versus soil water content θ. The psychrometer data were filtered to obtain the diurnal component contributed by hydraulic lift. The diurnal component in ψ was combined with the Campbell relation for each soil core to obtain the increase in soil water content Δθ due to hydraulic lift. The additional water contents Δθ were numerically integrated to obtain a volume of 102±54 1 of water which was hydraulically lifted each night. The volume of hydraulically lifted water (HLW) is sufficiently great that in ecosystems where hydraulic lift occurs it should be included in models for calculating the water balance. However, a previous analysis of the stable hydrogen isotope composition (δD) of water in understory plants around trees conducting hydraulic lift implies a much greater volume of HLW than that calculated from the analysis performed above. To reconcile these differences, it is hypothesized that some understory plants preferentially extract HLW due to its higher matric potential and that the proportion of this water source within the xylem sap of at least some understory plants that use HLW was so great that the roots of these plants must therefore be in close proximity to the tree roots from which the HLW comes. The results of this study have implications for studies of plant competition where positive associations may exist as well as for ion uptake, nutrient cycling and the design of agroforestry systems.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baker JM, Bavel CHM van (1986) Resistance of plant roots to water loss. Agron J 78:641–644
Bavel CHM van, Baker JM (1985) Water transfer by plant roots from wet to dry soil. Naturwissenschaften 72:606–607
Bertress MD, Callaway R (1994) Positive interactions in communities. Trends Ecol Evol 9:191–193
Bertress MD, Shumway SW (1993) Competition and facilitation in marsh plants. Am Nat 142:718–724
Caldwell MM, Richards JH (1989) Hydraulic lift: water efflux from upper roots improves effectiveness of water uptake by deep roots. Oecologia 79:1–5
Campbell GS (1974) A simple method for determining unsaturated conductivity from moisture retention data. Soil Sci 117:311–314
Campbell GS (1985) Soil physics with BASIC: transport models for soil-plant systems. Elsevier, New York
Corak SJ, Blevins DG, Pallardy SG (1987) Water transfer in an alfalfa/maize association. Plant Physiol 84:582–586
Corlett JE, Ong CK, Black CR (1989) Microclimatic modification in intercropping and alley-cropping systems. In: Reifsnyder WS, Darnhofer TO (eds) Meteorology and agroforestry. International Center for Research in Agroforestry, Nairobi, Kenya pp 419–430
Dawson TE (1993a) Hydraulic lift and water use by plants: implications for water balance, performance and plant-plant interactions. Oecologia 95:565–574
Dawson TE (1993b) Water sources of plants as determined from xylem-water isotopic composition: perspectives on plant competition, distribution, and water relations. In: Ehleringer JR, Hall AE, Farquhar GD (eds) Stable isotopes and plant carbon-water relations. Academic Press, San Diego, pp 465–496
Dawson TE, Pate JS (1996) Seasonal water uptake and movement in root systems of Australian phraetophytic plants of dimorphic root morphology: a stable isotope investigation. Oecologia (in press)
Emerman SH, Dawson TE (1995) Ecological implications of soil macropores. In: Morel-Seytoux H (ed) Proceedings of the fifteenth annual American Geophysical Union hydrology days. Hydrology Days Publications, Atherton, California, pp 33–47
Emerman SH, Dawson TE (1996) The role of macropores in the cultivation of bell pepper in salinized soil. Plant Soil (in press)
Fowkes ND, Landsberg JJ (1981) Optimal root systems in terms of water uptake and movement. In: Rose DA, Charles-Edwards DA (eds) Mathematics and plant physiology. Academic Press, London, pp 109–125
Klute A (1965) Laboratory measurements of hydraulic conductivity of saturated soil. In: Black CA (ed) Methods of soil analysis, part 1. American Society of Agronomy, Madison, pp 210–221
Landsberg JJ, Fowkes ND (1978) Water movement through roots. Ann Bot 42:493–508
Malik RS, Sharma SK (1990) Moisture extraction and crop yield as a function of distance from a row of Eucalyptus tereticornis. Agrofor Syst 12:187–195
Millikin CS, Bledsoe CS (1995) Seasonal soil water potential patterns provide evidence of hydraulic lift and fine root activity in a CA blue oak woodland. Bull Ecol Soc Am 76:367
Milly PCD (1987) Estimation of Brooks-Corey parameters from water retention data. Water Resources Res 23:1085–1089
Muller MW, Richards JH, Donovan LA (1995) Soil water availability to Sarcobatus vermiculatus along a successional gradient at Mono Lake, CA. Bull Ecol Soc Am 76:193
Nair PK (1993) An introduction to agroforestry. Kluwer, Dordrecht
Nobel PS, Sanderson J (1984) Rectifier-like activities of roots of two desert succulents. J Exp Bot 35:727–737
Ong CK, Corlett JE, Singh RP, Black CR (1991) Above and below ground interactions in agroforestry systems. For Ecol Manage 45:45–57
Phillips JG, Riha SJ (1994) Root growth, water uptake and canopy development in Eucalyptus viminalis seedlings. Aust J Plant Physiol 21:69–78
Richards JH, Caldwell MM (1987) Hydraulic lift: substantial nocturnal water transport between soil layers by Artemisia tridentata roots. Oecologia 73:486–489
Riha SJ, Rossiter DG (1993) GAPS: general-purpose atmosphereplant-soil simulator, version 2.1, users' manual. Department of Soil, Crop and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca
Singh RP, Ong CK, Saharan N (1989) Above and below ground interactions in alley-cropping in semiarid India. Agrofor Syst 9:259–274
Thorburn TJ, Ehleringer JR (1996) Root water uptake of fieldgrowing plants indicated by measurements of natural-abundance deuterium. Plant Soil (in press)
Tyree MT, Patiño S, Bennink J, Alexander J (1995) Dynamic measurements of root hydraulic conductance using a high-pressure flowmeter in the laboratory and field. J Exp Bot 46:83–94
Williams K, Caldwell MM, Richards JH (1993) The influence of shade and clouds on soil water potential: the buffered behavior of hydraulic lift. Plant Soil 157:83–95
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Emerman, S.H., Dawson, T.E. Hydraulic lift and its influence on the water content of the rhizosphere: an example from sugar maple, Acer saccharum . Oecologia 108, 273–278 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00334651
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00334651