Forest system hydraulic conductance: partitioning tree and soil components

What is it about?

Forests influence, and are influenced by, global climate. Here we use a novel approach to characterise a trait critical for understanding this land-atmosphere feedback: hydraulic conductance of whole trees and soil. The results show that hydraulic conductance at two tropical rainforest field sites differ little between species, but change according to tree size, while soil hydraulic conductance changes seasonally but is only a small fraction of the total, 'system', hydraulic conductance.

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