Drought alters C footprint of trees in soil: tracking the spatio-temporal fate of 13C labelled assimilates in the soil

Data from pulse-labelling experiment with 100-year old trees of a naturally dry pine forest exposed to a 15-year-long irrigation experiment. Canopies of 10 trees were labelled for 3 hours with 13CO2 and the fate of this label was traced for one year in stem and soil respiration and in microbial biomass around these trees. Data include (1) microclimatic data and soil respiration rates of the year following pulse labelling. (2) Temporal patterns of the 13C signal and 13C excess in soil respired CO2 and microbial biomass. (3) Spatial distribution of 13C signal in the soil.

• Sino Swiss Science and Technology Cooperation ETH (link) (Grant/Award: EG09-122016)
• Swiss National Science Foundation (link) (Grant/Award: 31003A_159866 and 310030_189109)

Decai Gao, Jobin Joseph, Roland A Werner, Ivano Brunner, Alois Zürcher, Christian Hug, Ao Wang, Chunhong Zhao, Edith Bai, Katrin Meusburger, Arthur Gessler, Frank Hagedorn (2021) Drought alters the carbon footprint of trees in soils - tracking the spatio-temporal fate of 13C labelled assimilates in the soil of an old-growth pine forest. Global Change Biology