Title

A Depth-Controlled Tracer Technique Quantifies the Location, Extent, and Timing of Water Uptake in a Sub-Tropical Savanna

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

New Phytologist

Volume

1

Issue

188

Publication Date

2010

First Page

199

Last Page

209

Abstract

  • As described in the two-layer hypothesis, woody plants are often assumed to use deep soils to avoid competition with grasses. Yet the direct measurements of root activity needed to test this hypothesis are rare.

  • Here, we injected deuterated water into four soil depths, at four times of year, to measure the vertical and horizontal location of water uptake by trees and grasses in a mesic savanna in Kruger National Park, South Africa.

  • Trees absorbed 24, 59, 14 and 4% of tracer from the 5, 20, 50, and 120 cm depths, respectively, while grasses absorbed 61, 29, 9 and 0.3% of tracer from the same depths. Only 44% of root mass was in the top 20 cm. Trees absorbed tracer under and beyond their crowns, while 98% of tracer absorbed by grasses came from directly under the stem.

  • Trees and grasses partitioned soil resources (20 vs 5 cm), but this partitioning did not reflect, as suggested by the two-layer hypothesis, the ability of trees to access deep soil water that was unavailable to grasses. Because root mass was a poor indicator of root activity, our results highlight the importance of precise root activity measurements.

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