The role of tundra vegetation in the Arctic water cycle

• Main Author: Clark, Jason A.
• Other Authors: Tape, Ken, Schnabel, William, Euskirchen, Eugénie, Ruess, Roger
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: tundra plants; Arctic regions; evapotranspiration; plants; hydrologic cycle; Arctic; Fairbanks; Betula nana; Tundra; Alaska
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11122/10893

Dissertation (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2019 Vegetation plays many roles in Arctic ecosystems, and the role of vegetation in linking the terrestrial system to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration is likely important. Through the acquisition and use of water, vegetation cycles water back to the atmosphere and modifies the local environment. Evapotranspiration is the collective term used to describe the transfer of water from vascular plants (transpiration) and non-vascular plants and surfaces (evaporation) to the atmosphere. Evapotranspiration is known to return large portions of the annual precipitation back to the atmosphere, and it is thus a major component of the terrestrial Arctic hydrologic budget. However, the relative contributions of dominant Arctic vegetation types to total evapotranspiration is unknown. This dissertation addresses the role of vegetation in the tundra water cycle in three chapters: (1) woody shrub stem water content and storage, (2) woody shrub transpiration, and (3) partitioning ecosystem evapotranspiration into major vegetation components. In Chapter 1 I present a method to continuously monitor Arctic shrub water content. The water content of three species (Salix alaxensis, Salix pulchra, Betula nana) was measured over two years to quantify seasonal patterns of stem water content. I found that spring uptake of snowmelt water and stem water storage was minimal relative to the precipitation and evapotranspiration water fluxes. In Chapter 2, I focused on water fluxes by measuring shrub transpiration at two contrasting sites in the arctic tundra of northern Alaska to provide a fundamental understanding of water and energy fluxes. The two sites contrasted moist acidic shrub tundra with a riparian tall shrub community having greater shrub density and biomass. The much greater total shrub transpiration at the riparian site reflected the 12-fold difference in leaf area between the sites. I developed a statistical model using vapor pressure deficit, net radiation, and leaf ...