Determination of the water sources of trees in arid areas of Central Anatolia using stable isotopes

The impacts of climate change will be more pronounced in the Central Anatolian Arid lands. Therefore, promising species under climate change scenarios should be included in the afforestation programs in the region. Thus, the aim of the current project is first to determine the plant water sources in the arid lands of Central Anatolia and then come up with species suggestions to the practitioners working in these arid lands afforestation sites based on decreasing water resources under the possible climate change scenarios. The study will be carried out in different age afforestation sites of black-locust (Robinia pseudoacacia), almond (Amygdalus communis), ash (Fraxinus angustifolia), Russian olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia), back pine (Pinus nigra), and cedar (Cedrus libani) in seven sites located in the Tuz Gölü-Konya basin. Three locations in the form of a triangle with a distance of 200 meters from each other will be determined on each site. Core samples will be taken from 5, 10, 20, and 30 meters depths of the soil at each location. Approximately 2 kg of soil samples will be taken from each core and 10 ml of water will be obtained from the soil samples. The most commonly used black-locust, almond, ash, Russian olive, black-pine and cedar species in the region will be sampled as two different age groups between 8-12 and 18-25. 30 individuals from both age groups of each species will be determined as sampling trees. About 10 ml of sap water will be sampled from each tree. 13C isotope will be analyzed in the leaves and needles of plants to compare the stomatal closure and their water use efficiency. For this, leaves and needles will be sampled representing the crown area when the leaf is at full expansion during early summer. Leaf and needle samples will be analyzed for their 13C isotopes. The water samples will be analized for their 8O isotopes content. The 13C, and 18O isotope fraction distributions in individuals of the same age of the same species and of the same age of different species will be compared with a one-way analysis of variance. In the ANOVA results determined to be different for each variable, Tukey's HSD mean separation test will be performed at the level of α = 0.05.