Abstract
Purpose
Ecohydrological separation (ES) phenomenon, whereby two compartmentalized soil reservoirs supply either plant water uptake or stream/groundwater recharge, provides a novel mentality for hydrological model simulation and water resource management. However, it remains uncertain whether the ES phenomenon exists in subtropical forests, especially in different types of forests at the regional scale.
Methods
We employed stable hydrogen and oxygen isotopes (δD and δ18O) to explore the relationship between tree xylem water, soil water and groundwater in two types of forests (wetland and mountain forests, respectively) from six sites across subtropical China. Furthermore, we also calculated the precipitation offset and soil/xylem water δ source values to clarify whether the ES phenomenon exists in both wetland and mountain forests of subtropical China.
Results
δD and δ18O of tree xylem water were similar to that in soil water rather than groundwater across six subtropical forests. Ulteriorly, precipitation offsets showed a significant difference between soil/tree xylem water and groundwater, whether in mountain forests or wetland forests. In addition, soil and tree xylem water δD/δ18O source values were significantly higher than groundwater δD/δ18O in these forests.
Conclusion
Three lines of evidence indicated that the ES phenomenon existed in both wetland and mountain forests of subtropical China. The ES phenomenon should be further used to hydrological models for projecting runoff formation, surface water retention time and evaporation-transpiration partitioning in subtropical forests, which could largely improve the simulation accuracy.
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Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31870716; 31670720) and the National Nonprofit Institute Research Grant of CAF (CAFYBB2017ZB003; CAFYBB2021ZE002).
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QX and BZ conceived and designed the study and wrote the manuscript. DG, TW and WX conducted field sampling. BZ and TW contributed to data interpretation, statistical analyses, and creation of illustrations. JH and HZ revised the manuscript.
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Zhang, B., Xu, Q., Gao, D. et al. Ecohydrological separation between tree xylem water and groundwater: Insights from two types of forests in subtropical China. Plant Soil 480, 625–635 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05607-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05607-x