ALBERT

Description: Understanding the variability and the current value of the Dole Effect, which has been used to infer past changes in biospheric productivity, requires accurate information on the discrimination associated with respiratory oxygen consumption in each of the biosphere components. Respiration in tree stems is an important component of the land carbon cycle. Here we measured, for the first time, the discrimination associated with tree stem oxygen uptake. The measurements included tropical forest trees, which are major contributors to the global fluxes of carbon and oxygen. We found discrimination in the range of 12.6–21.5 ‰, indicating both diffusion limitation, resulting in O2 discrimination values below 20 ‰, and alternative oxidase respiration, which resulted in discrimination values greater than 20 ‰. Discrimination varied seasonally, between and within tree species. Calculations based on these results show that variability in woody plants discrimination can result in significant variations in the global Dole Effect.

Description: Climate change induces long-term changes in soil-moisture. These changes can have important effects on the terrestrial biosphere, which can feedback into the climate system. In the past years there have been many attempts to produce and improve global soil-moisture datasets, however, comparing and validating these various datasets is not an easy task. Here, interannual variations in indices of soil moisture are compared to interannual changes in vegetation, as captured by NDVI. By comparing the correlations of the different indices with NDVI we evaluated which soil moisture index provides the most reliable soil moisture representation. We showed that NDVI can be used as an external validation dataset to soil moisture indices, in areas that are classified as warm temperate climate with hot or warm dry summers. Using the best performing index, NSM (Normalizes Soil Moisture), and the ICA (Independent Component Analysis) technique, we analyzed the response of vegetation to temperature and soil-moisture stresses over Europe.

Description: Respiration in tree stems is an important component of forest carbon balance. The rate of CO2 efflux from the stem has often been assumed to be a measure of stem respiration. However, recent work in temperate forests has demonstrated that stem CO2 efflux can either overestimate or underestimate respiration rate, because of emission or removal of CO2 by transport in xylem water. Here we used the ratio between CO2 efflux and O2 influx in stems of tropical forest trees to better understand respiration in an ecosystem that plays a key role in the global carbon cycle. This ratio, which we defined here as apparent respiratory quotient (ARQ), is expected to equal 1.0 if carbohydrates are the substrate for respiration, and the net transport of CO2 in the xylem water is negligible. However, using a stem chamber approach to quantifying ARQ we found values of 0.66 ± 0.18. These low ARQ values indicate that a large portion of respired CO2 (~35%) is not emitted locally, and is probably transported upward in the stem. ARQ values of 0.21 ± 0.10 were found for the steady-state gas concentration within the tree, sampled by in-stem equilibration probes. These lower values may result from the proximity to the xylem water stream. In contrast, we found ARQ values of 1.00 ± 0.13 for soil respiration. Our results indicate, for the first time, the existence of a~considerable internal flux of CO2in the stem of tropical trees. If the transported CO2 is used in the canopy as a substrate for photosynthesis, it could account for several percent of the C fixed by the tree, and perhaps serve as a mechanism that buffers the response of the tree to changing CO2 levels. Our results also indicate, in agreement with previous work, that the widely used CO2 efflux approach for determining stem respiration is unreliable. We demonstrate here a field applicable approach for measuring the O2 uptake rate, which we suggest to be a more appropriate method to estimate stem respiration rates.

Description: The 17O-excess (17Δ) of dissolved O2 has been used, for over a decade, to estimate gross O2 production (G17OP) rates in the mixed layer (ML) in many regions of the ocean. This estimate relies on a steady-state balance of O2 fluxes, which include air-sea gas exchange, photosynthesis and respiration but notably, not turbulent mixing with O2 from the thermocline. In light of recent publications, which showed that neglecting the turbulent flux may lead to inaccurate G17OP estimations, we present a simple correction for the effect of turbulent flux of O2 from the thermocline on ML G17OP. The correction is based on a turbulent-flux term between the thermocline and the ML, and use the difference between the ML 17Δ and that of a single data-point below the ML base. Using a numerical model and measured data we compared turbulence-corrected G17OP rates to those calculated without it. The corrected G17OP rates were 10–90% lower than the uncorrected rates, which implies that a large fraction of the photosynthetic O2 in the ML is actually produced in the thermocline.

Description: Soil respiration, is the sum of respiration processes in the soil, and is a major flux in the global carbon cycle. It is usually assumed that the CO2 efflux is equal to the soil respiration rate. Here we challenge this assumption by combining measurements of CO2 with high-precision measurements of O2. These measurements were conducted on different ecosystems and soil types, and included measurements of air-samples taken from the soil profile of three Mediterranean sites, a temperate forest, and two alpine forests. Root-free soils from the alpine sites were also incubated at the lab. We found that the ratio between the CO2 efflux to the O2 influx (which we defined as apparent respiratory quotient, ARQ) was in the range of 0.14 to 1.23, which strongly deviates from 0.9 ± 0.1, which is the ratio expected from the elemental composition of average plants and soil organic matter. At the Mediterranean sites these deviations were explained as a result of CO2 dissolution in the soil water and transformation to bi-carbonate in these high pH soils, and by carbonates dissolution and precipitation processes. Thus, correct estimate of the short-term, chamber-based biological respiratory flux in such soils can only be made by dividing the measured CO2 efflux by the average (efflux weighted) soil profile ARQ. We demonstrated that applying this approach to a semiarid pine forest resulted in estimated short-term respiration rate 3.8 times higher than the chamber-measured surface CO2 efflux (8.8 μmol CO2 m−2 s−1 instead of 2.3 μmol CO2 m−2 s−1, at the time of measurement). The ARQ values that were often found for the more acidic soils were lower than 0.7, and hence surprising. These values might be the result of the oxidation of reduced iron, which could previously form during times of high soil moisture and local anaerobic conditions inside aggregates. Further research is needed to confirm that low ARQ found in non-calcareous soils, is the result of this process, which can cause additional temporal decoupling between gas fluxes and soil respiration.

Description: The 17O excess (17Δ) of dissolved O2 has been used, for over a decade, to estimate gross O2 production (G17OP) rates in the mixed layer (ML) in many regions of the ocean. This estimate relies on a steady-state balance of O2 fluxes, which include air–sea gas exchange, photosynthesis and respiration but notably, not turbulent mixing with O2 from the thermocline. In light of recent publications, which showed that neglecting the turbulent flux of O2 from the thermocline may lead to inaccurate G17OP estimations, we present a simple correction for the effect of this flux on ML G17OP. The correction is based on a turbulent-flux term between the thermocline and the ML, and use the difference between the ML 17Δ and that of a single data-point below the ML base. Using a numerical model and measured data we compared turbulence-corrected G17OP rates to those calculated without it, and tested the sensitivity of the GOP correction for turbulent flux of O2 from the thermocline to several parameters. The main source of uncertainty on the correction is the eddy-diffusivity coefficient, which induces an uncertainty of ∼50%. The corrected G17OP rates were 10–90% lower than the previously published uncorrected rates, which implies that a large fraction of the photosynthetic O2 in the ML is actually produced in the thermocline.

Description: Soil respiration is the sum of respiration processes in the soil and is a major flux in the global carbon cycle. It is usually assumed that the CO2 efflux is equal to the soil respiration rate. Here we challenge this assumption by combining measurements of CO2 with high-precision measurements of O2. These measurements were conducted on different ecosystems and soil types and included measurements of air samples taken from the soil profile of three Mediterranean sites: a temperate forest and two alpine forests. Root-free soils from the alpine sites were also incubated in the lab. We found that the ratio between the CO2 efflux and the O2 influx (defined as apparent respiratory quotient, ARQ) was in the range of 0.14 to 1.23 and considerably deviated from the value of 0.9 ± 0.1 expected from the elemental composition of average plants and soil organic matter. At the Mediterranean sites, these deviations are explained as a result of CO2 dissolution in the soil water and transformation to bicarbonate ions in these high-pH soils, as well as by carbonate mineral dissolution and precipitation processes. Thus, a correct estimate of the short-term, chamber-based biological respiratory flux in such soils can only be made by dividing the measured soil CO2 efflux by the average (efflux-weighted) soil profile ARQ. Applying this approach to a semiarid pine forest resulted in an estimated short-term biological respiration rate that is 3.8 times higher than the chamber-measured surface CO2. The ARQ values often observed in the more acidic soils were unexpectedly low (〈 0.7). These values probably result from the oxidation of reduced iron, which has been formed previously during times of high soil moisture and local anaerobic conditions inside soil aggregates. The results reported here provide direct quantitative evidence of a large temporal decoupling between soil–gas exchange fluxes and biological soil respiration.

Description: Understanding the variability and the current value of the Dole Effect, which has been used to infer past changes in biospheric productivity, requires accurate information on the isotopic discrimination associated with respiratory oxygen consumption in each of the biosphere components. Respiration in tree stems is an important component of the land carbon cycle. Here we measured, for the first time, the discrimination associated with tree stem oxygen uptake. The measurements included tropical forest trees, which are major contributors to the global fluxes of carbon and oxygen. We found discrimination in the range of 12.6–21.5‰, indicating both diffusion limitation, resulting in O2 discrimination values below 20‰, and alternative oxidase respiration, which resulted in discrimination values greater than 20‰. Discrimination varied seasonally, between and within tree species. Calculations based on these results show that variability in woody plants discrimination can result in significant variations in the global Dole Effect.

Description: Respiration in tree stems is an important component of forest carbon balance. The rate of CO2 efflux from the stem has often been assumed to be a measure of stem respiration. However, recent work in temperate forests has demonstrated that stem CO2 efflux can either overestimate or underestimate respiration rate because of emission or removal of CO2 by transport in xylem water. Here, we studied gas exchange from stems of tropical forest trees using a new approach to better understand respiration in an ecosystem that plays a key role in the global carbon cycle. Our main questions were (1) is internal CO2 transport important in tropical trees, and, if so, (2) does this transport result in net release of CO2 respired in the roots at the stem, or does it cause the opposite effect of net removal of stem-respired CO2? To answer these questions, we measured the ratio of stem CO2 efflux to O2 influx. This ratio, defined here as apparent respiratory quotient (ARQ), is expected to equal 1.0 if carbohydrates are the substrate for respiration, and the net transport of CO2 in the xylem water is negligible. Using a stem chamber approach to quantifying ARQ, we found values of 0.66 ± 0.18. These low ARQ values indicate that a large portion of respired CO2 (~ 35%) is not emitted locally, and is probably transported upward in the stem. ARQ values of 0.21 ± 0.10 were found for the steady-state gas concentration within the stem, sampled by in-stem equilibration probes. These lower values may result from the proximity to the xylem water stream. In contrast, we found ARQ values of 1.00 ± 0.13 for soil respiration. Our results indicate the existence of a considerable internal flux of CO2 in the stems of tropical trees. If the transported CO2 is used in the canopy as a substrate for photosynthesis, it could account for up to 10% of the C fixed by the tree, and perhaps serve as a mechanism that buffers the response of the tree to changing CO2 levels. Our results also indicate, in agreement with previous work, that the widely used CO2 efflux approach for determining stem respiration is unreliable. We demonstrate here a field applicable approach for measuring the O2 uptake rate, which we suggest to be a more appropriate method to estimate stem respiration rates.

Description: In the past years there have been many attempts to produce and improve global soil-moisture datasets and drought indices. However, comparing and validating these various datasets is not straightforward. Here, interannual variations in drought indices are compared to interannual changes in vegetation, as captured by NDVI. By comparing the correlations of the different indices with NDVI we evaluated which drought index describes most realistically the actual changes in vegetation. Strong correlation between NDVI and the drought indices were found in areas that are classified as warm temperate climate with hot or warm dry summers. In these areas we ranked the PDSI, PSDI-SC, SPI3, and NSM indices, based on the interannual correlation with NDVI, and found that NSM outperformed the rest. Using this best performing index, and the ICA (Independent Component Analysis) technique, we analyzed the response of vegetation to temperature and soil-moisture stresses over Europe.