RAINFALL REGIME ON FINE ROOT GROWTH IN A SEASONALLY DRY TROPICAL FOREST

Eunice Maia De Andrade,Aldenia Mendes Mascena De Almeida,Antonio Givanilson Rodrigues Da Silva,Gilberto Quevedo Rosa,Maria Gina Torres Sena

doi:10.1590/1983-21252020v33n218rc

Eunice Maia De Andrade, Aldenia Mendes Mascena De Almeida + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/1983-21252020v33n218rc

Copy DOI

Abstract

ABSTRACT Seasonally dry tropical forests (SDTF) usually present dry seasons of eight or more months. Considering the concerns about the resilience of SDTF to climate changes, the objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of the rainfall regime on fine root growth in a SDTF. The experiment started at the end of the wet season (July 2015), when fine roots were evaluated and ingrowth cores were implemented. The temporal growth of fine roots in the 0-30 cm soil layer was monitored, considering the 0-10, 10-20, and 20-30 cm sublayers, through six samplings from November 2015 to July 2017. The characteristics evaluated were fine root biomass, fine root length, fine root specific length, and fine root mean diameter. The significances of the root growths over time and space were tested by the Kruskal-Wallis test (p<0.05). Fine roots (Ø<2 mm) were separated and dried in an oven (65 °C) until constant weight. The root length was determined using the Giaroots software. The fine root biomass in July 2015 was 7.7±5.0 Mg ha-1 and the length was 5.0±3.2 km m-2. Fine root growth in SDTF is strongly limited by dry periods, occurring decreases in biomass and length of fine roots in all layers evaluated. Fine root growth occurs predominantly in rainy seasons, with fast response of the root system to rainfall events, mainly in root length.

Highlights

Fine roots (Ø
This information denotes the importance of roots for carbon stock in tropical dry forests (ASSEFA et al, 2017; PEREIRA JÚNIOR et al, 2016). This component is less studied than those above the soil (ERKTAN; MCCORMACK; ROUMET, 2018). Possible reasons for this lack of studies on roots are (i) the fact that roots are within the complex soil matrix and their sampling is difficult (ERKTAN; MCCORMACK; ROUMET, 2018), mainly fine roots; (ii) methodologies for root development monitoring are laborious and require high investments (ANDREASSON et al, 2016; IVERSEN et al, 2017); (iii) and there is no methodology universally appropriate for root sampling (KATAYAMA et al, 2019)
The study was conducted in a fragment of a seasonally dry tropical forest (3°47'S, 39°16'W) in the Caatinga phytogeographic domain (SDTF-CPD), in the Curu Valley Experiment Farm of the Federal University of Ceará (Figure 1), Brazil