Rooting depth and plant water relations explain species distribution patterns within a sandplain landscape

Functional Plant Biology : FPB
Philip K Groom

Abstract

Tree and shrub species of the Banksia woodlands on the sandplains of northern Swan Coastal Plain, Western Australia possess a range of strategies to avoid or tolerate soil water deficits during the annual summer drought. Shallow-rooted shrub species (< 1 m rooting depth) inhabit a range of locations in the landscape, from top of dune crests to wetland embankments. These are the most drought-tolerant of all sandplain species, surviving extremely low summer soil water potentials (< -7 MPa) and tissue water deficits by significantly reducing their transpirational water loss (< 0.2 mmol m-2 s-1). This is in contrast to the few shallow-rooted species restricted to low-lying or seasonally waterlogged areas which are reliant on subsurface soil moisture or groundwater to maintain their relatively high summer water use. Recent studies of water source usage of selected Banksia tree species have shown that these deep-rooted species access groundwater up to a maximum depth of 9 m depth during the summer months, or soil moisture at depth when groundwater was greater than maximum rooting depths, depending on the species. Medium- and deep-rooted (1-2 m and > 2 m, respectively) shrub species cope with the summer soil drying phase and related d...Continue Reading

Citations

Sep 28, 2010·The New Phytologist·Yoseph N ArayaGuy Midgley
Dec 29, 2016·The Plant Journal : for Cell and Molecular Biology·Jessica M GusemanChris Dardick
Feb 20, 2014·Physiologia Plantarum·Martin K-F BaderErik J Veneklaas

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