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- H11T-1134: Root System Architecture and Resource Allocation Strategies Under Heterogeneous Soil Moisture: Divergent Adaptations of Co-Dominant Temperate Trees (invited)
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Board 1134‚ Hall EFG (Poster Hall)NOLA CC
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Shersingh Joseph Tumber-Dávila, Dartmouth College (First Author, Presenting Author)
Junior Burks, Dartmouth College
Thomas Muratore, Dartmouth College
Lara Roelofs, Dartmouth College
S. Grady Welsh, Dartmouth College
Trees rely on their roots to find water and nutrients in the soil, especially when conditions become dry or uneven. This study looks at how two common tree species in northeastern US forests, maple and oak, change the way they grow their roots in response to different soil moisture levels. We studied how much root biomass they have, where roots grow in the soil, and how they invest energy belowground under wetter and drier conditions.Maple trees use a strategy that focuses on having many fine roots in the upper soil layers to quickly capture water and nutrients. Oaks, on the other hand, grow roots deeper into the soil during dry conditions and rely more on their partnership with fungi to efficiently gather water and nutrients. These differences help both species survive and share space in the forest, especially during droughts.
By combining experiments in forests with large-scale data, we show how root systems adapt to changing water availability. Understanding these root strategies is important because roots control how forests use water and store carbon, which affects overall forest health and resilience as climate change brings more droughts and extreme weather.
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