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Ecological applications of differences in the hydraulic efficiency of palms and broad-leaved trees

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In tropical forests, co-occurring woody monocot and dicot species adapted different water use strategies highly depending on their investment in the hydraulic conduit properties.

Abstract

We studied the hydraulic efficiency of palms and broad-leaved tropical tree species from a moist tropical lowland forest in the Central Brazilian Amazon. Therefore, we harvested 34 trees and 10 açai palms and measured vessel size and frequency at diameter at breast height and additionally at the base of the crown shaft for the palms. Further, we assessed the active xylem area to estimate the hydraulic conductivity through Hagen Poiseuille’s adapted theoretical equation. Mean vessel diameter in dicot trees was 127.62 ± 49.22 μm with an average 9.09 ± 6.50 vessels per mm2. Mean conduits sizes at the base (h = 0.10 m) of palm trees were larger with 288.20 ± 32.96 μm and less frequent with 1.40 ± 0.46 vessels per mm2. Hydraulic conductivity was on average 3.31 ± 4.59 kg m−1 s−1 MPa−1 for dicot trees. Mean hydraulic conductivity in açai palms was 20.45 ± 10.6 kg m−1 s−1 MPa−1 at the base, and increased to 124.73 ± 55.2 kg m−1 s−1 MPa−1 at the crown base. Hydraulic conductivity at the base of the crown was higher than in the base of the trunk due to the high density of vessels in a small cross-section in this height. Furthermore, we found a species-independent relationship between vessel diameter and frequency. We conclude that the differences found in the hydraulic efficiency give some evidence that palms have a lower occurrence of embolism and cavitation than trees, which is due to stiffer and stronger conduit pathways and efficient drought-avoiding strategies. The differences in hydraulic architecture between palms and trees imply different water use patterns thus varying niche differentiation, but this does not consequently need to be an excluding factor for coexistence in the same environment.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Level Personal) for financing the first author’s master program, CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) for their program INCT—Madeiras da Amazônia that provides financial support for Forest Management Laboratory and ZF-2 camp site infra-structure, and INPA/CFT (Brazilian National Institute for Research in the Amazon/Tropical Forest Science Department) for their infra-structure, faculty and staff and for choosing and giving the first author the title of MSc. This present manuscript is based on partial data from the first author’s master thesis. We would also like to thank all the manual operations done by the workers at Forest Management ZF-2 camp site. Many thanks to Fernando Silva and Rempei Suwa for the palm tree harvesting. Further, we would like to thank Jorge Freitas, Francisco José Vasconcellos (INPA Xylotheque) and Claudete Catanhede do Nascimento (INPA Laboratory of Wood Artifacts Engineering) for giving access to laboratory equipment and facilitating the wood anatomy analyses.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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  1. L. M. T. Aparecido

    Present address: Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, Horticulture and Forest Science Building, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratorio de Manejo Florestal, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA), Av. Andre Araújo 2936, Manaus, Amazonas, CEP 69060-001, Brazil

    L. M. T. Aparecido, J. dos Santos, N. Higuchi & N. Kunert

  2. Department of Biogeochemical Processes, Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry, Hans-Knöll Str. 10, 07745, Jena, Germany

    N. Kunert

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  1. L. M. T. Aparecido
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Correspondence to L. M. T. Aparecido.

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Communicated by M. Zwieniecki.

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Aparecido, L.M.T., dos Santos, J., Higuchi, N. et al. Ecological applications of differences in the hydraulic efficiency of palms and broad-leaved trees. Trees 29, 1431–1445 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-015-1223-2

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