Continental and local climatic influences on hydrology of eucalypt-Nothofagus ecosystems revealed by δ2H, δ13C, and δ18O of ecosystem samples

Abstract

Marrying knowledge of variation in large-scale climatic parameters such as rainfall and evaporation to physiological ecology has long been argued as a powerful approach to advancing understanding of hydrology of catchments. Widely used hydrological models for assessing water yield depend on key plant attributes such as whether or not plant water use is coupled to atmospheric and/or soil water status. We analyzed δ2H and δ18O signatures of long-term rainwater collections from coastal sites near Melbourne, Australia, and in northwest Tasmania and compared them with their counterparts in rainwater, stream water, soil water, and twig water data collected over a 2 year period from south facing Eu..