Ecohydrology: Darwinian Expression of Vegetation Form and Function

Interactions among available energy, water dynamics, and nutrients are clearly critical to defining ecosystem function. The linkage between water and carbon dioxide exchanges in the plant and atmosphere continuum is at the heart of this dynamic. In forested systems, a strong relationship between carbon uptake and transpiration is understood to be a function of available energy and aerodynamic and canopy conductances. Holistically linking ecosystem properties to stand development and selection of community composition has long been a topic of theoretical discussion. However, few mechanistic means exist to assess these relationships. This, in turn, challenges the ability to characterize forest response to anthropogenic or natural variability, as such analyses require robust quantitative models.