Allometric relationships between primary size measures and sapwood area for six common tree species in snow-dependent ec
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Allometric relationships between primary size measures and sapwood area for six common tree species in snow‑dependent ecosystems in the Southwest United States Bhaskar Mitra1 · Shirley A. Papuga1,2 · M. Ross Alexander1,3 · Tyson Lee Swetnam4 · Nate Abramson5
Received: 24 December 2018 / Accepted: 19 June 2019 © The Author(s) 2019
Abstract High-elevation, snow-dependent, semiarid ecosystems across southwestern United States are expected to be vulnerable to climate change, including drought and fire, with implications for various aspects of the water cycle. To that end, much less is known about the dynamics of transpiration, an important component of the water cycle across this region. At the individual-tree scale, transpiration is estimated by scaling mean sap flux density by the hydroactive sapwood area (SA). SA also remains a key factor in effectively scaling individual tree water-use to stand level. SA across large spatial scales is normally established by relating SA of a few trees to primary size measures, e.g., diameter at breast height (DBH), tree height (H), or canopy Project funding: The work was supported by the NSF National Critical Zone Observatories Program (EAR-0724958). The online version is available at http://www.springerlink.com Corresponding editor: Tao Xu. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-019-01048-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Bhaskar Mitra [email protected] 1
School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
2
Department of Geology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202, USA
3
Laboratory of Tree‑Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
4
BIO5 Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
5
Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
diameter (CD). Considering the importance of SA in scaling transpiration, the primary objective of this study was therefore to establish six species-specific (aspen, maple, white fir, ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, Englemann spruce) allometric relationships between SA and three primary size measures (DBH, CD, or H) across two high-elevation, snow-dependent, semiarid ecosystems in New Mexico and Arizona. Based on multiple statistical criteria (coefficient of determination, index of agreement, Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency) and ease of measurement in the forest, we identified DBH as the primary independent variable for estimating SA across all sites. Based on group regression analysis, we found allometric relationships to be significantly (p
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