Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics

Trees regulate Earth's climate by pulling carbon from the air and releasing water vapor through tiny pores called stomata, but rising temperatures and prolonged droughts are pushing forests toward thresholds they may not recover from. Researchers studying plant water relations and carbon dynamics work to understand exactly how trees move water from roots to leaves, when that system fails under stress, and what mass die-offs mean for the carbon that forests store and exchange with the atmosphere. A central challenge is predicting which forests are most vulnerable and whether they can bounce back after extreme heat or drought, or whether mortality becomes self-reinforcing as dead trees release stored carbon and alter local climates. Open questions include how hydraulic failure and carbon starvation interact during drought, and how well current models capture the global distribution of forest carbon uptake under scenarios of continued warming.

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107,592

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3,209,661

Keywords

DroughtTree MortalityClimate ChangeEcosystem ResilienceEvapotranspirationCarbon Balance