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Life form-specific variations in leaf water oxygen-18 enrichment in Amazonian vegetation

  • Physiological Ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Leaf water 18O enrichment (Δo) influences the isotopic composition of both gas exchange and organic matter, with Δo values responding to changes in atmospheric parameters. In order to examine possible influences of plant parameters on Δo dynamics, we measured oxygen isotope ratios (δ18O) of leaf and stem water on plant species representing different life forms in Amazonia forest and pasture ecosystems. We conducted two field experiments: one in March (wet season) and another in September (dry season) 2004. In each experiment, leaf and stem samples were collected at 2-h intervals at night and hourly during the day for 50 h from eight species including upper-canopy forest trees, upper-canopy forest lianas, and lower-canopy forest trees, a C4 pasture grass and a C3 pasture shrub. Significant life form-related differences were detected in 18O leaf water values. Initial modeling efforts to explain these observations over-predicted nighttime Δo values by as much as 10‰. Across all species, errors associated with measured values of the δ18O of atmospheric water vapor (δv) appeared to be largely responsible for the over-predictions of nighttime Δo observations. We could not eliminate collection or storage of water vapor samples as a possible error and therefore developed an alternative, plant-based method for estimating the daily average δv value in the absence of direct (reliable) measurements. This approach differs from the common assumption that isotopic equilibrium exists between water vapor and precipitation water, by including transpiration-based contributions from local vegetation through 18O measurements of bulk leaf water. Inclusion of both modified δv and non-steady state features resulted in model predictions that more reliably predicted both the magnitude and temporal patterns observed in the data. The influence of life form-specific patterns of Δo was incorporated through changes in the effective path length, an important but little known parameter associated with the Péclet effect.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a grant from NASA to project CD-02 in the LBA Terrestrial Ecology Program. C.-T. Lai was supported, in part, through the Terrestrial Carbon Processes program by the Office of Science (BER), USA Department of Energy under grant no. DE-FG03-00ER63012, and the National Institute for Climatic Change Research program, USA Department of Energy under grant no. DE-FC02-06ER64156.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA, 92182, USA

    Chun-Ta Lai

  2. Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura, Av. Centenário 303, Piracicaba, SP, Cep 13416-000, Brazil

    Jean P. H. B. Ometto & Luiz A. Martinelli

  3. Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Stanford, CA, USA

    Joseph A. Berry

  4. Institute of Geography, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Drummond Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9XP, Scotland, UK

    Tomas F. Domingues

  5. Department of Biology, University of Utah, 257S 1400E, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112-0840, USA

    James R. Ehleringer

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  1. Chun-Ta Lai
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  2. Jean P. H. B. Ometto
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  3. Joseph A. Berry
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  4. Luiz A. Martinelli
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  5. Tomas F. Domingues
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  6. James R. Ehleringer
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Correspondence to Chun-Ta Lai.

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Communicated by Todd Dawson.

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Lai, CT., Ometto, J.P.H.B., Berry, J.A. et al. Life form-specific variations in leaf water oxygen-18 enrichment in Amazonian vegetation. Oecologia 157, 197–210 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-008-1071-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-008-1071-5

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