Intrinsic Water-Use Efficiency Derived from Stable Carbon Isotopes of Tree-Rings

Abstract

AbstractStable carbon isotopes in tree-rings are not only useful to derive climatic information of the past. Based on the isotope fractionations during uptake and fixation of CO2, physiological information can be retrieved, namely the ratio of assimilation to stomatal conductance, which is termed the intrinsic water-use efficiency (iWUE). This crucial plant physiological trait varies among species and environments and is characteristic of how much water is lost from leaves for a certain carbon gain. iWUE is of great importance at the scale of individual plants because it can determine plant performance and survival. iWUE also contributes how closely canopy- or ecosystem-scale carbon and water fluxes are coupled or divergent, which has implications for understanding biogeochemical cycling. Carbon isotopes in tree-rings can be used to estimate how iWUE of trees has changed in the past, e.g. due to increasing CO2, nitrogen or other factors. Accordingly, many applications have explored this tool for various forest ecosystems across the globe, often reporting a strong increase in iWUE over the twentieth century. Explicit comparisons of tree-ring iWUE to growth-data obtained from the same rings can help distinguish among strategies plants employ under various environmental impacts, like increasing CO2, light limitation, drought or too much water. In this chapter, we describe the theory behind iWUE, show some limitations of the method, give examples of the combined application of iWUE and tree-ring width, discuss photosynthetic limitations of iWUE and finally show how the method has been applied in large-scale tree-ring networks.