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Journal Article

Paired analysis of tree ring width and carbon isotopes indicates when controls on tropical tree growth change from light to water limitations

Authors

Brienen,  Roel
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/ghelle

Helle,  G.
4.3 Climate Dynamics and Landscape Evolution, 4.0 Geosystems, Departments, GFZ Publication Database, Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum;

Pons,  Thijs
External Organizations;

Boom,  Arnoud
External Organizations;

Gloor,  Manuel
External Organizations;

Groenendijk,  Peter
External Organizations;

Clerici,  Santiago
External Organizations;

Leng,  Melanie
External Organizations;

Jones,  Christopher
External Organizations;

Cernusak,  Lucas
External Organizations;

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Fulltext (public)

5010802.pdf
(Publisher version), 2MB

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Citation

Brienen, R., Helle, G., Pons, T., Boom, A., Gloor, M., Groenendijk, P., Clerici, S., Leng, M., Jones, C. (2022): Paired analysis of tree ring width and carbon isotopes indicates when controls on tropical tree growth change from light to water limitations. - Tree Physiology, 42, 6, 1131-1148.
https://doi.org/10.1093/treephys/tpab142


Cite as: https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5010802
Abstract
Light and water availability are likely to vary over the lifespan of closed-canopy forest trees, with understory trees experiencing greater limitations to growth by light and canopy trees greater limitation due to drought. As drought and shade have opposing effects on isotope discrimination (Δ13C), paired measurement of ring width and Δ13C can potentially be used to differentiate between water and light limitations on tree growth. We tested this approach for Cedrela trees from three tropical forests in Bolivia and Mexico that differ in rainfall and canopy structure. Using lifetime ring width and Δ13C data for trees of up to and over 200 years old, we assessed how controls on tree growth changed from understory to the canopy. Growth and Δ13C are mostly anti-correlated in the understory, but this anti-correlation disappeared or weakened when trees reached the canopy, especially at the wettest site. This indicates that understory growth variation is controlled by photosynthetic carbon assimilation due to variation in light levels. Once trees reached the canopy, inter-annual variation in growth and Δ13C at one of the dry sites showed positive correlations, indicating that inter-annual variation in growth is driven by variation in water stress affecting stomatal conductance. Paired analysis of ring widths and carbon isotopes provides significant insight in what environmental factors control growth over a tree’s life; strong light limitations for understory trees in closed-canopy moist forests switched to drought stress for (sub)canopy trees in dry forests. We show that combined isotope and ring width measurements can significantly improve our insights in tree functioning and be used to disentangle limitations due to shade from those due to drought.