Northern Forest DroughtNet: Initial results from a multi-year throughfall manipulation experiment in New Hampshire
Abstract
Climate change is likely to affect the Northern Forest region through the increased frequency and severity of drought events. However, our understanding of how the Northern Forest, which is adapted to humid temperate conditions, will respond to moderate to extreme droughts is limited. Given the important role that these forests play in protecting ecosystem services and in supplying forest products, enhancing our knowledge about impacts of drought is critical to ensuring effective forest management and adaptation to climate change. The Northern Forest DroughtNet project aims to simulate a four-year severe drought by removing 55% of the incoming throughfall; thus representing the 99th percentile of annual precipitation based on historic precipitation data in Durham, NH. This is accomplished using two replicated 900 m2 throughfall removal structures consisting of a network of gutters that capture and divert incoming precipitation away from the established treatment area. Data presented here will address the ecosystem response to the drought treatment over the course of the first year of the experiment as well as validate the effectiveness and artifacts of the throughfall removal structure. Response variables of interest include soil moisture content, above and below ground biomass production, litterfall, decomposition rates, leaf water potential, foliar gas exchange, and whole tree transpiration rates. Preliminary findings provide insight into the effectiveness of using throughfall manipulation experiments in a temperate forest ecosystem to simulate an extreme drought event, as well as initial tree physiological and growth responses in relation to soil moisture availability and the implications for future climate change impacts.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFMGC53D1324M
- Keywords:
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- 0414 Biogeochemical cycles;
- processes;
- and modeling;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 0439 Ecosystems;
- structure and dynamics;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 1622 Earth system modeling;
- GLOBAL CHANGEDE: 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE