Life Sciences Commons^™

Temporal And Spatial Partitioning Of The Soil Water Resource Between Two Agropyron Bunchgrasses And Artemisia Tridentata, Halldor Thorgeirsson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Dynamics of soil water use by two cool-season Agropyron bunchgrasses during the warm season depletion of soil water reserves were monitored for two years in experimental plots in the field. Agropyron desertorum, an introduced, competitive species from Eurasia, extracted more water from the deeper ( > 50 cm) soil layers than the native, less competitive Agropyron spicatum. Agropyron desertorum both extracts this water earlier and to lower soil water potentials than Agropyron spicatum. From the water extraction dynamics of the grasses in monocultures and in their two-way (50:50) mixtures with a shrub they commonly co-occur with, Artemisia tridentata …