Plant water use strategies predict restoration success across degraded drylands

Plant strategies for coping with water limitation are likely to mediate restoration outcomes in degraded dryland ecosystems. Tradeoffs in traits related to water acquisition and use can intensify in more arid environments, making their effects on dryland restoration success even more salient. However, isolating the effects of drought responses from those of other environmental factors, as well as identifying the specific drought resistance traits that influence restoration success, can be difficult.
In the present study, we couple a controlled dry-down experiment with a cross-site restoration field trial of out-planted seedlings (RestoreNet) using a suite of dryland herbaceous plant species from the same seed sources. We quantified interspecific variation in physiological responses to drought, specifically reductions in stomatal conductance (gs) and stem water potential (SWP), by comparing well-watered control plants to those experiencing decreasing soil moisture.
Drought responses of ..., Data in this study include (1) survival values from RestoreNet field sites, and (2) physiological data from a controlled, mesocosm dry-down experiment. Data were QA/QC'd in Excel and processed in R.,