Skip Navigation


Tree Physiology Advance Access originally published online on January 28, 2009
Tree Physiology 2009 29(4):541-550; doi:10.1093/treephys/tpn046
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
29/4/541    most recent
tpn046v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Brunner, I.
Right arrow Articles by Dobbertin, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Brunner, I.
Right arrow Articles by Dobbertin, M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Morphological and physiological responses of Scots pine fine roots to water supply in a dry climatic region in Switzerland

Ivano Brunner1,2, Elisabeth Graf Pannatier1, Beat Frey1, Andreas Rigling1, Werner Landolt1, Stephan Zimmermann1 and Matthias Dobbertin1

1 Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), Zürcherstrasse 111, CH-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland
2 Corresponding author (ivano.brunner{at}wsl.ch)


  Abstract

In recent decades, Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) forests in inner-Alpine dry valleys of Switzerland have suffered from drought and elevated temperatures, resulting in a higher mortality rate of trees than the mean mortality rate in Switzerland. We investigated the responses of fine roots (standing crop, morphological and physiological features) to water supply in a Scots pine forest in the Rhone valley. Before irrigation started in 2003, low- and high-productivity Scots pine trees were selected based on their crown transparency. The fine root standing crop measured in spring from 2003 to 2005 was unaffected by the irrigation treatment. However, irrigation significantly enhanced the fine root standing crop during the vegetation period when values from spring were compared with values from fall in 2005. Irrigation slightly increased specific root length but decreased root tissue density. Fine root O2-consumption capacity decreased slightly in response to the irrigation treatment. Using ingrowth cores to observe the responses of newly produced fine roots, irrigation had a significantly positive effect on the length of fine roots, but there were no differences between the low- and high-productivity trees. In contrast to the weak response of fine roots to irrigation, the aboveground parts responded positively to irrigation with more dense crowns. The lack of a marked response of the fine root biomass to irrigation in the low- and high-productivity trees suggests that fine roots have a high priority for within-tree carbon allocation.

Keywords: drought, fine root growth, fine root physiological and morphological properties, fine root standing crop, high- and low-productivity pines, ingrowth cores, irrigation, Pinus sylvestris

Received August 29, 2008; Accepted November 24, 2008


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.