Bai et al. (2026) Climate‐Driven Hydraulic Traits Shift in Natural and Planted Forests: Patterns, Drivers, and Future Acclimation

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Earth s Future
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-01-01
• Authors: Yan Bai, Yujie Hu, Yanlan Liu, Kailiang Yu, Xiangzhong Luo, Liyao Yu, Lei Tian, Jianping Huang
• DOI: 10.1029/2025ef006678

Research Groups

Not specified in abstract.

Short Summary

This study investigated how tree planting influences hydraulic trait patterns and acclimation across spatial scales in China, finding distinct differences between natural and planted forests, and projecting increased water-use efficiency and drought resistance for both under future climate change.

Objective

• To examine hydraulic trait patterns and relationships, quantify environmental and ecological drivers on ecosystem-scale hydraulic traits, and computationally project future trait acclimation in natural and planted forests across China.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Site-level data set across China, focusing on ecosystem-scale hydraulic traits.
• Temporal Scale: Projections under future climate scenarios, utilizing a space-for-time approach to infer temporal acclimation.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Space-for-time approach for computational projections of future trait acclimation.
• Data sources: Compiled site-level data set of hydraulic traits in natural and planted forests.

Main Results

• Distinct differences in hydraulic traits were identified between natural forests (NF) and planted forests (PF), with PF exhibiting higher hydraulic safety but lower hydraulic efficiency than NF at the species level.
• Natural forests demonstrated a trade-off between hydraulic efficiency and safety, whereas planted forests exhibited a contrasting positive correlation between these traits.
• Both environmental and ecological factors were confirmed to influence ecosystem-scale hydraulic traits in NF and PF, though dominant drivers varied among specific traits.
• Projections under future climate scenarios suggest that both forest types tend to exhibit increased water-use efficiency and enhanced drought resistance in response to rising precipitation and air dryness, despite persistent differences in trait acclimation between NF and PF.

Contributions

• Provides a valuable benchmark for estimating potential changes in hydraulic traits under climate change.
• Supports improved simulations of carbon and water fluxes in response to climate and anthropogenic influences.

Funding

Not specified in abstract.

Citation

@article{Bai2026ClimateDriven,
  author = {Bai, Yan and Hu, Yujie and Liu, Yanlan and Yu, Kailiang and Luo, Xiangzhong and Yu, Liyao and Tian, Lei and Huang, Jianping},
  title = {Climate‐Driven Hydraulic Traits Shift in Natural and Planted Forests: Patterns, Drivers, and Future Acclimation},
  journal = {Earth s Future},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1029/2025ef006678},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025ef006678}
}