Modeling Potential Impacts of Planting Palms or Tree in Small Holder Fruit Plantations on Ecohydrological Processes in the Central Amazon

Norbert Kunert,Niro Higuchi,Luiza Aparecido,Priscila Barros

doi:10.3390/f6082530

Norbert Kunert, Niro Higuchi + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/f6082530

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Abstract

Native fruiting plants are widely cultivated in the Amazon, but little information on their water use characteristics can be found in the literature. To explore the potential impacts of plantations on local to regional water balance, we studied plant water use characteristics of two native fruit plants commonly occurring in the Amazon region. The study was conducted in a mixed fruit plantation containing a dicot tree species (Cupuaçu, Theobroma grandiflorum) and a monocot palm species (Açai, Euterpe oleracea) close to the city of Manaus, in the Central Amazon. Scaling from sap flux measurements, palms had a 3.5-fold higher water consumption compared to trees with a similar diameter. Despite the high transpiration rates of the palms, our plantation had only one third of the potential water recycling capacity of natural forests in the area. Converting natural forest into such plantations will thus result in significantly higher runoff rates.

Highlights

Native fruiting plants are widely cultivated in the Amazon, but little information on their water use characteristics can be found in the literature
In the Central Amazon, the native Açai palm (Euterpe oleracea), for example, plays a significant role in the local diet, as the fruit pulp is processed into wine, candies, ice creams and jams and the inner core of the stems can be consumed as palm hearts [2,3]
Despite the already existing studies on the water use characteristics of trees growing under plantation conditions [11,12,13], we focused on an almost ignored plant type, as only a few ecophysiological studies exist on neotropical palms [1,14], and increased the species pool of dicot trees studied

Summary

Introduction

Native fruiting plants are widely cultivated in the Amazon, but little information on their water use characteristics can be found in the literature. In the Central Amazon, the native Açai palm (Euterpe oleracea), for example, plays a significant role in the local diet, as the fruit pulp is processed into wine, candies, ice creams and jams and the inner core of the stems can be consumed as palm hearts [2,3]. America and Europe, as it is suspected to contain cholesterol-reducing fats and anti-aging antioxidants [5] Another widely-cultivated native woody plant from the well-drained, species-rich “terra firme” forests of the Amazon is the dicot tree Theobroma grandiflorum [6]; its fruits are processed into juice, ice creams, jellies, wine, liqueur and candies [7]. Small-scale land use changes associated with plantations are assumed to have smaller effects on the hydrological cycle than large-scale deforestation [9], to our knowledge, the alterations to the local water regimes after the establishment of this specific sort of small-scale plantation has not yet been studied in the region

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