Abstract
Floodplain forests are very complex, productive ecosystems, capable of storing huge amounts of soil carbon. With the increasing occurrence of extreme events, they are today among the most threatened ecosystems. Our study's main goal was to assess the productivity of a floodplain forest located at Lanžhot in the Czech Republic from two perspectives: carbon uptake (using an eddy covariance method) and stem radius variations (using dendrometers). We aimed to determine which conditions allow for high ecosystem production and what role drought plays in reducing such production potential. Additionally, we were interested to determine the relative soil water content threshold indicating the onset and duration of this event. We hypothesized that summer drought in 2018 had the most significant negative effects on the overall annual carbon and water budgets. In contrast with our original hypothesis, we found that an exceptionally warm spring in 2018 caused a positive gross primary production (GPP) and evapotranspiration (ET) anomaly that consequently led in 2018 to the highest seasonal total GPP and ET from all of the investigated years (2015–2018). The results showed ring-porous species to be the most drought resistant. Relative soil water content threshold of approximately 0.45 was determined as indicating the onset of drought stress.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Impacts of the 2018 severe drought and heatwave in Europe: from site to continental scale’.
Highlights
Floodplain forests are characterized as one of the world’s most complex and dynamic ecosystems, with great habitat heterogeneity and diverse biota adapted to high spatial–temporal heterogeneity [1]
We hypothesized that summer drought in 2018 had the most significant negative effects on the overall annual carbon and water budgets
In contrast with our original hypothesis, we found that an exceptionally warm spring in 2018 caused a positive gross primary production (GPP) and evapotranspiration (ET) anomaly that led in 2018 to the highest seasonal total GPP and ET from all of the investigated years (2015–2018)
Summary
Floodplain forests are characterized as one of the world’s most complex and dynamic ecosystems, with great habitat heterogeneity and diverse biota adapted to high spatial–temporal heterogeneity [1]. Among the most biologically productive ecosystems, floodplain forests are able to store huge amounts of soil carbon [2] and their structure and production are closely tied to fluvial dynamics. The timing, depth and duration of flooding have been found to be the main determinants of structural complexity, species richness, species composition and primary productivity [3]. Floodplain forests play a crucial role in carbon and nutrient cycles. Despite their importance as confirmed by the many roles they play in the environment, understanding is still lacking as to how variation in environmental conditions influences carbon-related floodplain ecosystem processes
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