Agroforestry parklands, in which annual crops are grown under scattered mature trees, constitute the most prevalent farming system in semiarid West Africa, covering vast areas of land. The most dominant tree species in these systems is Vitellaria paradoxa, an indigenous tree to West Africa. Despite the importance of this tree in the region, no study to our knowledge has examined its sources and patterns of water uptake. In this study, we used oxygen stable isotopes at natural abundance levels to investigate water sources used by V. paradoxa both in the dry and wet season in an agroforestry parkland in Burkina Faso. We found that during the wet season soil moisture was highest near the soil surface (
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.1808Altmetric score:
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Publication year
2017
Authors
Bargués Tobella A; Hasselquist N J; Bazié H R; Nyberg G; Laudon H; Bayala, J.; Ilstedt, U.
Language
English
Keywords
seasonality, water depletion, agroforestry, farming systems
Geographic
Burkina Faso
