Mangroves provide blue carbon ecological value at a low freshwater cost.

"Blue carbon" wetland vegetation has a limited freshwater requirement. One type, mangroves, utilizes less freshwater during transpiration than adjacent terrestrial ecoregions, equating to only 43% (average) to 57% (potential) of evapotranspiration ([Formula: see text]). Here, we demonstrate that comparative consumptive water use by mangrove vegetation is as much as 2905 kL HO ha year less than adjacent ecoregions with [Formula: see text]-to-[Formula: see text] ratios of 47-70%.

Root grafts matter for inter-tree water exchange - a quantification of water translocation between root grafted mangrove trees using field data and model-based indications.

Background And Aims: Trees interconnected through functional root grafts can exchange resources, but the effect of exchange on trees remains under debate. A mechanistic understanding of resource exchange via functional root grafts will help understand their ecological implications for tree water exchange for individual trees, groups of trees and forest stands.

Methods: To identify the main patterns qualitatively describing the movement of sap between grafted trees, we reviewed the available literature on root grafting in woody plants that focus on tree allometry and resource translocation via root grafts.

Tallo: A global tree allometry and crown architecture database.

Data capturing multiple axes of tree size and shape, such as a tree's stem diameter, height and crown size, underpin a wide range of ecological research-from developing and testing theory on forest structure and dynamics, to estimating forest carbon stocks and their uncertainties, and integrating remote sensing imagery into forest monitoring programmes. However, these data can be surprisingly hard to come by, particularly for certain regions of the world and for specific taxonomic groups, posing a real barrier to progress in these fields. To overcome this challenge, we developed the Tallo database, a collection of 498,838 georeferenced and taxonomically standardized records of individual trees for which stem diameter, height and/or crown radius have been measured.

Root grafts matter for inter-tree water exchange - a quantification of water translocation between root grafted mangrove trees using field data and model based indication.

Background And Aims: Trees interconnected through functional root grafts can exchange resources, but the effect of exchange on trees remains under debate. A mechanistic understanding of resources exchange via functional root grafts will help understand their ecological implications for tree water exchange for individual trees, groups of trees, and forest stands.

Methods: To identify the main patterns qualitatively describing the movement of sap between grafted trees, we reviewed available literature on root grafting in woody plants that focus on tree allometry and resource translocation via root grafts.

Cooperative root graft networks benefit mangrove trees under stress.

The occurrence of natural root grafts, the union of roots of the same or different trees, is common and shared across tree species. However, their significance for forest ecology remains little understood. While early research suggested negative effects of root grafting with the risk of pathogen transmission, recent evidence supports the hypothesis that it is an adaptive strategy that reduces stress by facilitating resource exchange.