January 19, 222

Lauren Noel of Michigan State University

Source: Michigan State University

A new discovery published by researchers at Michigan State University studies how climate change shapes the future of the world's largest rainforest and the effects of drought on forest growth under different soil, water and groundwater levels.

these research results were made by researchers Scott Stark and Marielle Smith of Michigan state university, his colleague professor Flávia Costa, the national institute for Amazon research in Brazil, And Juliana Schietti, an assistant professor at the Federal University of Amazon. Studying how climate change shapes the future of the world's largest rainforest and the effects of drought on forest growth under different soil, water and groundwater levels-this is a particularly hot topic in view of the recent United Nations COP26 Climate Conference.

This study was first published in a US National Science Foundation project worth $1.12 million, which aims to investigate the influence of soil groundwater level on the drought response of Amazon forest. The project was led by Stark and Smith and colleagues Costa and Schietti.

Amazon forest is important to global carbon storage, climate system and biodiversity. Therefore, the importance of studying how these ecosystems respond to climate change, especially drought, has been fully recognized. However, research often ignores a key component of hydrological cycle-groundwater.

considering the hydrological conditions widely existing in the Amazon basin, this neglect is surprising-from forests growing deep underground, where soil water may become scarce, to forests that are flooded seasonally, where soil water is abundant all year round. The failure to evaluate the drought response of Amazon forests on the whole soil water availability gradient limits scientists' ability to predict the future of these forests.

The team's latest research, published in the journal New Botanist on January 17th, summarizes the importance of groundwater level and previous studies, and shows that shallow groundwater level forests have the potential as hydrological "shelters", or oases-while other forests are negatively affected, they show resilience to drought.

Stark said: "for the ecosystem, the refuge is basically a safe place, which allows the ecosystem to survive in a more desolate environment."

This leads researchers to assume that there are great differences in the response to drought in places with different soil water table conditions, especially in shallow water table forests, which may actually benefit from moderate drought.