Contribution of deep soil layers to the transpiration of a temperate deciduous forest: Implications for the modelling of productivity

Maysonnave Jean, Delpierre Nicolas, François Christophe, Jourdan Marion, Cornut Ivan, Bazot Stéphane, Vincent Gaëlle, Morfin Alexandre, Berveiller Daniel. 2022. Contribution of deep soil layers to the transpiration of a temperate deciduous forest: Implications for the modelling of productivity. Science of the Total Environment, 838 (2):155981, 12 p.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.155981

Article de revue ; Article de recherche ; Article de revue à facteur d'impact

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Résumé : Climate change is imposing drier atmospheric and edaphic conditions on temperate forests. Here, we investigated how deep soil (down to 300 cm) water extraction contributed to the provision of water in the Fontainebleau-Barbeau temperate oak forest over two years, including the 2018 record drought. Deep water provision was key to sustain canopy transpiration during drought, with layers below 150 cm contributing up to 60% of the transpired water in August 2018, despite their very low density of fine roots. We further showed that soil databases used to parameterize ecosystem models largely underestimated the amount of water extractable from the soil by trees, due to a considerable underestimation of the tree rooting depth. The consensus database established for France gave an estimate of 207 mm for the soil water holding capacity (SWHC) at Fontainebleau-Barbeau, when our estimate based on the analysis of soil water content measurements was 1.9 times as high, reaching 390 ± 17 mm. Running the CASTANEA forest model with the database-derived SWHC yielded a 185 gC m−2 y−1 average underestimation of annual gross primary productivity under current climate, reaching up to 687 ± 117 gC m−2 y−1 under climate change scenario RCP8.5. It is likely that the strong underestimation of SWHC that we show at our site is not a special case, and concerns a large number of forest sites. Thus, we argue for a generalisation of deep soil water content measurements in forests, in order to improve the estimation of SWHC and the simulation of the forest carbon cycle in the current context of climate change.

Mots-clés Agrovoc : changement climatique, conditions météorologiques, cycle du carbone, transpiration, forêt, sécheresse, teneur en eau du sol, fertilité du sol, climat tempéré, eau du sol, écosystème, séquestration du carbone