Abstract
The water table in the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) rose significantly since the construction of the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze River. Little is known about how such a change in local hydrological condition will affect the ecophysiology of plants along the bank of the world’s largest reservoir. In this study, water relations of the dominant plants were investigated over an entire year period by comparing stable isotope compositions of xylem water, leaf water potentials and foliar carbon isotope ratios at a newly-formed riparian site near the river bank and two non-riparian sites at higher elevations. The isotopic compositions of xylem water indicated that the plants in the newly-formed riparian zone acquired water mainly from the soil previously infiltrated by local rain rather than the Yangtze River water. Predawn and midday water potentials of the riparian trees were also similar to those at the non-riparian sites. Leaf δ13C values of plants across the three sites also showed no difference, even though there was a significant difference among species. Our results indicate that plants at the newly formed transient riparian area along the bank of TGR do not depend on the Yangtze River water for their water sources and that rising water levels in this reservoir may not lead to immediate changes in water relations of the plants along the bank.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Jianzhu Wang, Fei Yuan and Yang Li for their assistance in the field samplings and measurements, and Leyi Li for his assistance in isotopic measurements. We thank Shiqiang Wan, Shiping Chen and Shuli Niu for their valuable comments on the developing of our early manuscripts. We also acknowledge the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that led to a major improvement in the quality of this work. This research was supported in part by the Key Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Knowledge Innovation Direction Program to JH Huang (Grant No. KSCX2-SW-109) and by The “Bairen (Hundred People) Project” fund of Chinese Academy of Sciences to G. Lin.
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Communicated by K. Winter.
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Sun, S., Huang, J., Han, X. et al. Comparisons in water relations of plants between newly formed riparian and non-riparian habitats along the bank of Three Gorges Reservoir, China. Trees 22, 717–728 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-008-0232-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-008-0232-9