Forest under stress: responses and recovery of water relations across scales during the compound drought in summer 2022
The summer of 2022 was characterized by compound soil and atmospheric drought (CSAD; low soil water content, SWC, and high vapor pressure deficit, VPD) in Central Europe, threatening forest carbon sequestration and water balance, yet linked ecosystem- and tree-level hydraulic responses remain poorly resolved. We assessed the response and recovery of water relations of a beech-dominated montane mixed deciduous forest in Switzerland (CH-Lae) to the 2022 CSAD through a series of ecosystem-scale (evapotranspiration, ET; canopy conductance, Gs) as well as tree-scale measurements, including leaf-level (leaf water potential, LWP; stomatal conductance, gs), stem-level (nighttime stem rehydration, NSR) and root-level (root water uptake depth, RWU depth) variables. During peak CSAD, ET and Gs declined by up to 50%, driven primarily by low SWC. Midday and predawn LWP declined significantly. Beech and maple accessed deeper water (> 70 cm), maintaining NSR and gs during CSAD and fully recovering thereafter; spruce and fir relied on shallow water (< 30 cm), showing stronger NSR reductions but still full recovery post-CSAD. Our findings demonstrate that species-specific hydraulic traits drive forest-scale water dynamics under CSAD conditions. Integrating these insights into forest adaptation strategies will be critical for sustaining forests under intensifying compound droughts in the future.
Authors
- Fabio Turco (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-8461-8003)
- Luana Krebs (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-9206-8446)
- Yi Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-2053-741X)
- Liliana Scapucci (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7709-7213)
- Marius G. Floriancic (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5108-4580)
- Iris Feigenwinter (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7493-6790)
- Roland A. Werner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4117-1346)
- Ruikun Gou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4655-2479)
- Sophia Etzold (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5383-2228)
- Ankit Shekhar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0802-2821)
- Annika Ackermann
- Lukas Johannes Hörtnagl (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5569-0761)
- Sergio Aranda-Barranco (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4089-5836)
- Mana Gharun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0337-7367)
- Franziska Richter (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7865-9903)
- Roman Zweifel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9438-0582)
- Stefan Osterwalder (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8775-0813)
- Nina C. Buchmann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0826-2980)
- Anastasiia Bolshakova (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-6580-8425)
- Anna K. Gilgen
Institutions
- Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IN)
- Lund University (SE)
- York University (CA)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- University of Münster (DE)
- Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (CH)
- ETH Zurich (CH)
- Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra (ES)
- Zurich University of Teacher Education (CH)
- FH Münster University of Applied Sciences (DE)
- Northwest A&F University (CN)
- Stanford University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- New Phytologist
- Published
- 2026-09-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.71516
- Primary Topic
- Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00