Large-scale experimentation allows scientists to test the specific responses of ecosystems to changing environmental conditions. Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory together with other Federal and University scientists conducted a large-scale climatic change experiment at the Walker Branch Watershed in Tennessee, a model upland hardwood forest in North America. This volume synthesizes mechanisms of forest ecosystem response to changing hydrologic budgets associated with climatic change drivers. The authors explain the implications of changes at both the plant and stand levels, and they extrapolate the data to ecosystem-level responses, such as changes in nutrient cycling, biodiversity and carbon sequestration. In analyzing data, they also discuss similarities and differences with other temperate deciduous forests.Source data for the experiment has been archived by the authors in the U.S. Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Center (CDIAC) for future analysis and modeling by independent investigators.

Large-scale experimentation allows scientists to test the specificresponses of ecosystems to changing environmental conditions. Thisvolume synthesizes mechanisms of forest ecosystem response to changinghydrologic budgets associated with climatic change drivers. Theauthors explain the implications of changes at both the plant andstand levels, and they extrapolate the data to ecosystem-levelresponses, such as changes in nutrient cycling, biodiversity andcarbon sequestration. In analyzing data, they also discusssimilarities and differences with other temperate deciduous forests.

Section 1. Introduction.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Walker Branch Throughfall Displacement Experiment.- Section 2. Carbon-Cycle Processes.- 3. Deciduous Hardwood Photosynthesis: Species Differences, Temporal Patterns, and Responses to Soil-Water Deficits.- 4. Aboveground Autotrophic Respiration.- 5. Dormant-Season Nonstructural Carbohydrate Storage.- Section 3. Water-Cycle Processes.- 6. Sensitivity of Sapling and Mature-Tree Water Use to Altered Precipitation Regimes.- 7. Stomatal Behavior of Forest Trees in Relation to Hydraulic, Chemical, and Environmental Factors.- 8. Leaf Water Potential, Osmotic Potential, and Solute Accumulation of Several Hardwood Species as Affected by Manipulation of Throughfall Precipitation in an Upland Quercus Forest.- 9.180 and 13C in Leaf Litter Versus Tree-Ring Cellulose as Proxy Isotopic Indicators of Climate Change.- Section 4. Decomposition and Soil Carbon Turnover.- 10. Soil Respiration and Litter Decomposition.- 11. Soil Carbon Turnover.- 12. Rates of Coarse-Wood Decomposition.- Section 5. Plant Growth and Mortality.- 13. Tree Seedling Recruitment in a Temperate Deciduous Forest: Interactive Effects of Soil Moisture, Light, and Slope Position.- 14. Response of Understory Tree Seedling Populations to Spatiotemporal Variation in Soil Moisture.- 15. Tree and Sapling Growth and Mortality.- 16. Fine Root Growth Response.- 17. Canopy Production.- Section 6. Response of Other Organisms.- 18. Foliar Chemistry and Herbivory.- 19. Opportunistically Pathogenic Root Rot Fungi: Armillaria Species.- 20. The Influence of Precipitation Change on Spiders as Top Predators in the Detrital Community.- Section 7. Forest Stand-Level Syntheses.- 21. Forest Water Use and the Influence of Precipitation Change.- 22. Estimating the Net Primary and Net Ecosystem Production of a Southeastern Upland Quercus Forest from an 8-Year Biometric Record.- 23. Nutrient Availability and Cycling.- Section 8. Extrapolations.- 24. Long-Term Forest Dynamics and Tree Growth at the TDE Site on Walker Branch Watershed.- 25. Simulated Patterns of Forest Succession and Productivity as a Consequence of Altered Precipitation.- 26. Regional Implications of the Throughfall Displacement Experiment on Forest Productivity.- Appendix. List of Scientific and Common Species Names.