Titelangaben
Bodé, Samuel ; De Wispelaere, Lien ; Hemp, Andreas ; Verschuren, Dirk ; Boeckx, Pascal:
Water-isotope ecohydrology of Mount Kilimanjaro.
In: Ecohydrology.
Bd. 13
(2020)
Heft 1
.
- e2171.
ISSN 1936-0592
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.2171
Abstract
Notwithstanding its crucial importance for assessing the vulnerability of tropical mountain ecosystems to both local anthropogenic pressure and climate change, knowledge of the relationships between climate, hydrology, and vegetation on Mount Kilimanjaro is highly fragmentary. Unraveling the pathway of water from precipitation to transpiration can also help validate paleoclimate proxies derived from the hydrogen- and oxygen-isotopic signatures of plant compounds, such as leaf waxes. We measured δ2H and δ18O in precipitation, stream, and soil water, and in xylem and leaf water of locally common plants, for four successive seasons along a 3,000-m altitudinal transect covering lowland savannah, lower and upper montane forest, and the subalpine zone on Mount Kilimanjaro. Across all four bioclimatic zones, δ2H and δ18O in precipitation decreased with monthly precipitation amount at a rate of −8 ± 2‰ and −1.0 ± 0.3‰ per 100 mm, respectively. Our xylem-water isotope data indicate that plants in general took up topsoil water during the northeasterly monsoon season and short dry season and gradually shifted to deeper soil water during the southeasterly monsoon season and the main dry season. Savannah trees and shrubs tapped from a water pool recharged by source water with a relatively constant isotopic signature. This observation conforms to the “two water worlds” hypothesis and implies a possible seasonal bias in plant-derived paleohydrological proxies. Finally, our results show strong correlation between xylem-to-leaf water-isotopic enrichment and ambient relative humidity, despite a bias in the savannah that we attribute to a leaf-cooling mechanism in this warm, semi-arid environment.
Weitere Angaben
| Publikationsform: | Artikel in einer Zeitschrift |
|---|---|
| Begutachteter Beitrag: | Ja |
| Institutionen der Universität: | Fakultäten > Fakultät für Biologie, Chemie und Geowissenschaften > Fachgruppe Biologie > Lehrstuhl Pflanzensystematik Forschungseinrichtungen > Zentrale wissenschaftliche Einrichtungen > Bayreuther Zentrum für Ökologie und Umweltforschung - BayCEER |
| Titel an der UBT entstanden: | Ja |
| Themengebiete aus DDC: | 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 550 Geowissenschaften, Geologie 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 580 Pflanzen (Botanik) |
| Eingestellt am: | 21 Mai 2026 13:40 |
| Letzte Änderung: | 21 Mai 2026 13:40 |
| URI: | https://eref.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/97666 |

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