Contrasting stem water uptake and storage dynamics of water-saver and water-spender species during drought and recovery.

Drought is projected to occur more frequently and intensely in the coming decades, and the extent to which it will affect forest functioning will depend on species-specific responses to water stress. Aiming to understand the hydraulic traits and water dynamics behind water-saver and water-spender strategies in response to drought and recovery, we conducted a pot experiment with two species with contrasting physiological strategies, Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and Portuguese oak (Quercus faginea L.

Home gardens' agrobiodiversity and owners' knowledge of their ecological, economic and socio-cultural multifunctionality: a case study in the lowlands of Tabasco, México.

Background: Home gardens (HGs) are hotspots of in situ agrobiodiversity conservation. We conducted a case study in Tabasco, México, on HG owners' knowledge of HG ecological, economical and socio-cultural multifunctionality and how it relates to agrobiodiversity as measured by species richness and diversity. The term multifunctionality knowledge refers to owners' knowledge on how HGs contribute to ecological processes, family economy, as well as human relations and local culture.

Coupled plant traits adapted to wetting/drying cycles of substrates co-define niche multidimensionality.

Theories attempting to explain species coexistence in plant communities have argued in favour of species' capacities to occupy a multidimensional niche with spatial, temporal and biotic axes. We used the concept of hydrological niche segregation to learn how ecological niches are structured both spatially and temporally and whether small scale humidity gradients between adjacent niches are the main factor explaining water partitioning among tree species in a highly water-limited semiarid forest ecosystem. By combining geophysical methods, isotopic ecology, plant ecophysiology and anatomical measurements, we show how coexisting pine and oak species share, use and temporally switch between diverse spatially distinct niches by employing a set of functionally coupled plant traits in response to changing environmental signals.

Ecohydrogeochemical functioning of coastal freshwater herbaceous wetlands in the Protected Natural Area, Ciénaga del Fuerte (American tropics): Spatiotemporal behaviour.

Coastal zones are characterized by the interactions between continents and oceans and, therefore, between fresh and salt surface and groundwater. The wetlands of coastal zones represent transitional ecosystems that are affected by these conditions, although little is known about the hydrogeochemistry of wetlands, especially coastal wetlands. In the present study, the hydrogeochemical characterization of coastal freshwater herbaceous wetlands in the Ciénaga del Fuerte Protected Natural Area in Veracruz, Mexico, in the American tropics was carried out per plant community.

Geoecohydrological mechanisms couple soil and leaf water dynamics and facilitate species coexistence in shallow soils of a tropical semiarid mixed forest.

Trees growing on shallow rocky soils must have exceptional adaptations when underlying weathered bedrock has no deep fractures for water storage. Under semiarid conditions, hydrology of shallow soils is expected to decouple from plant hydrology, as soils dry out as a result of rapid evaporation and competition for water increases between coexisting tree species. Gas exchange and plant-water relations were monitored for 15 months for Pinus cembroides and Quercus potosina tree species in a tropical semiarid forest growing on c.