Key to evaluating the consequences of woody plant encroachment on water and carbon cycling in semiarid ecosystems is a mechanistic understanding of how biological and non-biological processes influence water loss to the atmosphere. To better understand how precipitation is partitioned into the components of evapotranspiration (bare-soil evaporation and plant transpiration) and their relationship to plant uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) as well as ecosystem respiratory efflux, we measured whole plant transpiration, evapotranspiration, and CO2 fluxes over the course of a growing season at a semiarid Chihuahuan Desert shrubland site in south-eastern Arizona. Whole plant transpiration was measured using the heat balance sap-flow method, while evapotranspiration and net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of CO2 were quantified using the Bowen ratio technique.
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