B2WALD

Science Paper out now - open access link available here:

Werner, C., Meredith, L. K., Ladd, S. N., Ingrisch, J., Kübert, A., van Haren, J., ... & Williams, J. (2021). Ecosystem fluxes during drought and recovery in an experimental forest. Science, 374(6574), 1514-1518. (Open-Access)

This campaign is centered on the ERC-funded project VOCO2 and coordinated together with the new director of the Biosphere tropical rainforest Laura Meredith (University of Arizona, Tucson).

We have now successfully demonstrated the application of cutting-edge technology (δ¹³CO₂ laser spectroscopy, high sensitivity PTR-TOF-MS and quantitative isotopic NMR spectroscopy) to characterize real-time carbon allocation into VOCs and CO₂ using plant position-specific ¹³C-pyruvate labeling (labelled at the C1 or C2-carbon position) at the branch scale (Fasbender et al. 2018) and, more recently using entire plants. In the final stage of the ERC grant we conducted the world-wide first canopy positional labelling in the unique facilities of the tropical rainforest in the Biosphere 2 (Werner et al. 2021), Arizona, the world’s largest controlled growth facility: the Biosphere 2 Tropical Rainforest. The B2 TRF is the ideal location for this project because whole-ecosystem fluxes can be measured within the enclosed system, the environment is controlled, and the canopy can be accessed, which enables real-time monitoring of ecosystem and branch-level fluxes. This whole ecosystem labelling experiment is a unique opportunity to assess ecosystem processes – from the atmosphere, biosphere, soil and hydrology. Our methodological approach enables novel insights into all these different ecosystem components. Moreover, the biosphere is the world-wide sole system, where full ecosystem manipulation experiments are possible.

Photo 1 The Biosphere 2 Tropical Rainforest provides a unique opportunity to holistically evaluate mechanisms and interactions driving ecosystem-scale responses to stressors such as drought (Photo Laura Meredith)

An unprecedented 4-month labelling experiment was conducted by 1) simulating an ecosystem drought and recovery and 2) bringing in experts and equipment to enable simultaneous measurements of pools and fluxes at the atmosphere, vegetation (phyllosphere, stems), rhizosphere, microbiome and deep water soil processes.

The B2-WALD campagne will be ground-breaking in:

Tracing pools and fluxes at all levels throughout the ecosystems, disentangling ecosystem processes, interactions and feedbacks to an important climate change driver (drought) from the atmosphere, biosphere (including phyllosphere, rizosphere) and hydrology
Closing carbon and water budget at an ecosystem scales (in a unique closed facility)
Partitioning carbon allocation from the molecular to the ecosystems scale
Integrating metabolomics, genomics, volatilomics into ecosystem fluxes approaches in a truly interdisciplinary manner
deconvolution of the role of deep water reserves, quantifying the role of hydraulic lift by deep rooted trees to ecosystem water budgets by groundwater labelling

The Rainforest campaign produced massive amounts of diverse, but integrated (Bonnie Hurwitz, NSF EarthCube proposal), data to paint an exceptional picture of the movement of carbon and water through an ecosystem before, during, and after drought, as a function of diverse biological and abiotic drivers. The stable isotope label applied to the ecosystem can be studied in the years to come, asking how long carbon will remain stabilized in the soil for example.

Organization and Management

The campaign is co-led by Christiane Werner (Full Professor, University of Freiburg) and Laura Meredith (B2 Rainforest Science Director and Assistant Professor, SNRE, UA), with leadership and organization also by Nemiah Ladd (ERC-Postdoc, University of Freiburg).

Partners

This is a large-scale, international research campaign, lead by the ERC-team based at the UA Biosphere 2 that brought in external contributions including personnel, equipment, and research capabilities.

The number of partners currently committed to the campaign, in addition to Biosphere 2 team members (6-8), is approximately 50 participants (MS Students to Professors) from 20 research groups and 13 institutions located both US (3 US universities including UA/B2) and EU (10 EU from Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Scotland).

Publications

Pugliese, Giovanni; Ingrisch, Johannes; Meredith, Laura K.; Pfannerstill, Eva Y.; Klüpfel, Thomas; Meeran, Kathiravan; Byron, Joseph; Purser, Gemma; Gil-Loaiza, Juliana; van Haren, Joost; Dontsova, Katerina; Kreuzwieser, Jürgen; Ladd, S. Nemiah; Werner, Christiane; Williams, Jonathan (2023).Effects of drought and recovery on soil volatile organic compound fluxes in an experimental rainforest. Nature Communications, 14(1), 5064. DOI: 1038/s41467-023-40661-8
Ladd, S. Nemiah; Daber, L. Erik; Bamberger, Ines; Kübert, Angelika; Kreuzwieser, Jürgen; Purser, Gemma; Ingrisch, Johannes; Deleeuw, Jason; van Haren, Joost; Meredith, Laura K.; Werner, Christiane (2023). Leaf-level metabolic changes in response to drought affect daytime CO2 emission and isoprenoid synthesis pathways. Tree Phys. Accepted, Preprint DOI: 10.1101/2022.04.29.490001
Honeker, Linnea K; Pugliese, Giovanni; Ingrisch, Johannes; Fudyma, Jane; Gil-Loaiza, Juliana; Carpenter, Elizabeth; Singer, Esther; Hildebrand, Gina; Shi, Lingling; Hoyt, David W.; Krechmer, Jordan E.; Claflin, Megan; Ayala-Ortiz, Christian; Freire-Zapata, Viviana; Pfannerstill, Eva Y.; Daber, L. Erik; Meeran, Kathiravan; Dippold, Michaela A.; Kreuzwieser, Jürgen; Williams, Jonathan; Ladd, S. Nemiah; Werner, Christiane; Tfaily, Malak M.; Meredith, Laura K. (2023). Drought re-routes soil microbial carbon metabolism towards emission of volatile metabolites in an artificial tropical rainforest. Nature Microbiology, 8(8), 1480–1494. DOI: 10.1038/s41564-023-01432-9
Hildebrand, Gina A.; Honeker, Linnea K.; Freire-Zapata, Viviana; Ayala-Ortiz, Christian; Rajakaruna, Sumudu; Fudyma, Jane; Daber6, Erik; AminiTabrizi, Roya; Chu, Rosalie L.; Toyoda, Jason; Flowers, Sarah E.; Hoyt, David W.; Hamdan, Rasha; Gil-Loaiza, Juliana; Shi, Lingling; Dippold, Michaela A.; Ladd, S. Nemiah; Werner, Christiane; Meredith, Laura K.; Tfaily, Malak M. (2023). Uncovering the Dominant Role of Root Metabolism in Shaping Rhizosphere Metabolome under Drought in Tropical Rainforest Plants. Science of the Total Environment, 899, 165689. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165689
Kühnhammer, Kathrin; van Haren, Joost; Kübert, Angelika; Bailey, Kinzie; Dubbert, Maren; Hu, Jia; Ladd, Nemiah; Meredith, Laura K.; Werner, Christiane; Beyer, Matthias (2023). Deep roots mitigate drought impacts on tropical trees despite limited quantitative contribution to transpiration. Science of The Total Environment, 893, 164763. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164763
Byron, Joseph; Kreuzwieser, Jürgen; Purser, Gemma; van Haren, Joost; Ladd, S. Nemiah; Meredith, Laura K.; Werner, Christiane; Williams, Jonathan (2022). Chiral monoterpenes reveal forest emission mechanisms and drought responses. Nature, 609(7026), 307–312. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05020-5
Kübert, Angelika; Dubbert, Maren; Bamberger, Ines; Kühnhammer, Kathrin; Beyer, Matthias; van Haren, Joost; Bailey, Kinzie; Hu, Jia; Meredith, Laura; Ladd, S. Nemiah; Werner, Christiane (2022). Tracing plant source water dynamics during drought by continuous transpiration measurements: an in-situ stable isotope approach. Plant, Cell and Environment, 46(1), 133–149. DOI: 10.1111/pce.14475
Honeker, Linnea; Hildebrand, Gina; Fudyma, Jane; Daber, Erik; Hoyt, David; Flowers, Sarah; Gil-Loazia, Juliana; Kübert, Angelika; Bamberger, Ines; Anderton, Christopher; Cliff, John; Leichty, Sarah; AminiTabrizi, Roya; Kreuzwieser, Juergen; Shi, Ling Ling; Bai, Xuejuan; Veličković, Dušan; Dippold, Michaela; Ladd, S. Nemiah; Werner, Christiane; Meredith, Laura; Tfaily, Malak (2022). Elucidating Drought-Tolerance Mechanisms in Plant Roots through ¹H NMR Metabolomics in Parallel with MALDI-MS, and NanoSIMS Imaging Technique. Sci. Technol., 56(3), 2021−2032. DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.1c06772
Werner, Christiane; Meredith, Laura K.; Ladd, S. Nemiah; Ingrisch, Johannes; Kübert, Angelika; van Haren, Joost; Bahn, Michael; Bailey, Kinzie; Bamberger, Ines; Beyer, Matthias; Blomdahl, Daniel; Byron, Joseph; Daber, Erik; Deleeuw, Jason; Dippold, Michaela; Fudyma, Jane; Gil-Loaiza, Juliana; Honeker, Linnea K.; Hu, Jia; Huang, Jianbei; Klüpfel, Thomas; Krechmer, Jordan; Kreuzwieser, Jürgen; Kühnhammer, Kathrin; Lehmann, Marco M.; Meeran, Kathiravan; Misztal, Pawel K.; Ng, Wei-Ren; Pfannerstill, Eva; Pugliese, Giovanni; Purser, Gemma; Roscioli, Joseph; Shi, Lingling; Tfaily, Malak; Williams, Jonathan (2021). Ecosystem fluxes during drought and recovery in an experimental forest. Science, 374(6574), 1514-1518, DOI: 10.1126/science.abj6789
Ladd, S. Nemiah; Nelson, Daniel; Bamberger, Ines; Daber, L. Erik; Kreuzwieser, Juergen; Kahmen, Ansgar; Werner, Christiane (2021). Metabolic exchange between pathways for isoprenoid synthesis and implications for biosynthetic hydrogen isotope fractionation. New Phytologist, 231(5), 1708–1719. DOI: 10.1111/nph.17510

B2WALD

Organization and Management

Partners

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Publications