PSInet – a global water potential network to improve understanding of ecosystems water status and flows

Anticipating and preparing for life on a warming planet requires a predictive understanding of how increasing drought and heat stress will affect terrestrial plants and the many services they provide. The water potential of soils and plants – which can be imagined as the blood pressure of the natural world – is a fundamental driver of ecosystem water flows, and directly controls many aspects of plant functioning during drought. However, and especially when compared to the rich information contained in flux tower networks like AmeriFlux and FLUXNET, observations of water potential are relatively sparse, undiscoverable, and plagued by methodological disparities that constrain the synthetic research necessary to improve conceptual understanding and predictive models of plant drought responses. A new network – PSInet – will confront this water potential information gap by creating an open and accessible global water potential database that is harmonized with the structure of other established and related networks (e.g. flux tower networks, SAPFLUXNET). The database creation will be complemented by efforts to develop community-crafted protocols, best-practices, and analytical tools for soil and plant water potential observation and interpretation, with a particular emphasis on emerging techniques for continuous observation of water potential in-situ. Finally, the network will build a diverse “Community of Practice” to elevate the measurement, synthesis, and application of plant and soil water potential through early career training programs, community workshops, and novel teaching and outreach tools. In this talk, I’ll describe how these activities could provide the data, collaborative platforms, and training necessary to improve our predictive understanding of ecosystem water status and flows.