Leaf hydraulic and photosynthetic traits mediate forest-scale resource use efficiencies across the continental United States
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Temperate forests play a critical role in global carbon cycling and other ecosystem services, yet their resilience to climatic stresses remains uncertain. We combined physiology, community composition, flux data, and modeling to test a functional trait-based approach to predict forest ecosystem processes. For eight U.S. forests spanning broad precipitation and temperature gradients, we scaled up key leaf functional traits—maximum carboxylation velocity of Rubisco ( V c , m a x ), maximum leaf hydraulic conductance ( K l , m a x ), and turgor loss point (that is, wilting point, π t l p ) to predict gross primary productivity, light-use efficiency, standard and intrinsic water-use efficiency (WUE and iWUE), and their sensitivities to soil drought. In multiple regressions, ecosystem processes were strongly associated with community-weighted mean (CWM) trait values: enhanced productivity was linked with high V c , m a x ¯ , K l , m a x ¯ and π t l p ¯ , whereas high WUE and iWUE were linked with low K l , m a x ¯ and high π t l p ¯ . The CWM functional traits also influenced the sensitivity of ecosystem processes to soil moisture. A causal role of functional traits in driving ecosystem processes alongside climate was supported by parameterizing the LM4.1 vegetation model with CWM functional traits. This study highlights the important role of functional traits in determining forest responses to climate-driven water stress at a continental scale.
Authors: Bailu Zhao, Lawren Sack, Hannes Paul T. De Deurwaerder, Camila D. Medeiros, Nidhi Vinod, Marvin Browne, Jeffrey D. Wood, K. C. Cushman, Elena Shevliakova, Sergey Malyshev, Anna Jiselle Ongjoco, Anna Trugman, David A. Orwig, Christina McKeown, Joseph Zailaa, Daniel J. Johnson, Lukas Magee, Sean McMahon, Jess Shue, Karina Schafer, Sean Burns, Peter D. Blanken, Matteo Detto
Institutions: Princeton University, High Meadows Environmental Institute, Virginia Tech, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Stanford University, University of Missouri, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, University of California, Santa Barbara, Harvard University, Department of Conservation and Recreation, Yale University, University of Florida, Louisiana State University, Université de Montpellier, UMR Botanique et Modélisation de l’Architecture des Plantes et des végétations, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7225649797