DOI: 10.5061/dryad.mgqnk99bg
title: Data from: Where do we expect to find deep plant roots?

description: Plant roots have been observed up to 70 meters in depth – What would
 compel a plant to root so deep? Earlier work shows that the climate, soil
 and drainage all affect rooting depth, but with conflicting results. For
 example, both the deepest and shallowest roots are found in arid regions.
 We compiled &gt;2,400 globally distributed rooting-depth observations
 of individual plants and applied simple correlation analysis to assess the
 impact of global climate, local topography and substrate, and individual
 plant size, and their combinations controlling where and why plants root
 deep. The provided dataset includes 2,458 observations of maximum rooting
 depths of individual plants, and their abiotic and biotic variables across
 &gt;130 plant families, including 2,021 observations from Fan et al.
 (2017)  and additional 437 observations synthesized as part of
 this study. Using this data, we found that at the global scale, deep roots
 are driven by climate. Both concentrated wet periods and prolonged drought
 are required to drive deep roots, and we find the deepest roots in
 semi-arid climates with strong precipitation seasonality or interannual
 variability. At the landscape scale, drainage modulates rooting depth. An
 accessible water table facilitates deep roots at midslopes but it is too
 deep to impact roots further upslope. Instead, the deep vadose zone
 moisture reserve is the primary driver for deep rooting. Thus the deepest
 roots are observed on well-drained uplands with deep vadose zones under
 climates with distinct wet and dry periods. At the plot scale, substrate
 structure and hydraulic properties modulate deep rooting – B-horizons
 limit deep roots, while woody plants often root below the bedrock surface,
 provided it is fractured. At the individual plant scale, deep roots are
 limited to high-biomass woody plants. Together, these findings sharpen our
 understanding of where and why plants root deep, highlighting
 intersections of climate, drainage, terrain and biomass and identifying
 conditions where deep roots may serve as a lifeline during prolonged
 drought, meanwhile weathering rock, sequestering carbon, and bringing the
 living world far deeper than the conventional “root zone”.
description: # Data from: Where do we expect to find deep plant roots? Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.mgqnk99bg](10.5061/dryad.mgqnk99bg) ## Description of the
 data and file structure We compiled rooting depth observations from
 published literature, government papers, and unpublished theses and
 reports. We searched by key words such as “root”, “rooting depth”, and
 “root system” in Web of Science database and Digital Library of JSTOR
 ([http://about.jstor.org/](http://about.jstor.org/)), and found more
 reports through citations within the documents. Our compilation continues
 as more data come into light by incorporating international literature.
 The 2,458 entries of &gt;1100 species we have compiled so far are given in
 a large table. We have also included a description of each variable, how
 it was compiled, and the reference for each observation. We recorded the
 following information: (A) Reference of data source (all included in the
 reference list at the end of this document) (B) Geographic Location
 (nearest city, state or province, country or region, continent) (C) Biome
 (if not given by the author, it is based on the map of major world biomes
 from Wikipedia:
 [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Biomes.jpg](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Biomes.jpg)); inconstancies in terminology are to be expected (D) Observation Site (for those investigations that include multiple sites) (E) Vegetation Phenology / Leaf Form (evergreen vs. deciduous, broad-leaf vs. needle-leaf, perennial vs. annual for herbaceous plants, succulents, geophytes etc.); some are not given and thus based on information found on the USDA Plant Database ([https://plants.usda.gov/java/](https://plants.usda.gov/java/)), and if not listed, Wikipedia (F) Vegetation Growth Form or Stature (large or small tree, woody shrub, vines, grass, and herbs); where not specified by the author, information is found on the internet (such as Wikipedia and USDA Plant Database) (G) Common Name of plants in English (where available) (H) Scientific Name, recording dominant species if roots are not distinguished among species; no entry if not given by the investigators, as is often the case when terms such as “tropical rainforest” or “shrub land” are used only (I) Maximum Rooting Depth (m) Although the focus of the data compilation, the absolute maximum rooting depth is difficult to ascertain because most excavations, soil trenches, coring, or rhizotron/mini-rhizotron tubes terminated at arbitrary depths without knowing or following the deepest roots to the end. In most cases, the maximum rooting depth recorded is the depth of the investigation, such as the depth of the trench or the soil core, and they are clearly under-estimates of the true maximum rooting depths. In other cases where chemical tracers are used to infer the depths of root “water-uptake”, the maximum rooting depth can be over-estimated if capillary rise transported the tracer upward toward the shallower roots, or under-estimated if tracer injection depth is above the maximum rooting depth and taken up by the shallower portion of the root system. The recorded maximum rooting depth can be that of a single plant (e.g. through excavation of individuals), the mean of several plants of the same species (e.g., in monoculture stands), or that of many species/individuals intercepted by the soil trench, monoliths, or cores. (J) Method of making root observations, including excavation of the whole or partial root system, soil trench walls and root counting using a grid overlay, soil monoliths, road cuts or quarry exposures, stream bank erosion exposures, soil coring or block sampling, rhizotron or mini-rhizotron imaging, and natural or injected isotopes or other chemical tracers found in plant tissues. We avoided the latter if there are direct measurements of rooting depths in the area, but included it in regions with few data such as the Kalahari Desert. (K) Profile Data availability: some provide quantitative information on root mass or length distribution with depth, while others are in the form of scaled drawings and photographs (L) Mean Annual Precipitation (Ppt) (mm) as reported by the investigators based on site or nearest rain gage (no attempt was made to fill in the data gaps) (M) Precipitation Seasonality as reported by the investigators (N) Potential Evapotranspiration (PET) (mm) as reported by the investigators (O) Topographic Position of the site, e.g., hilltop or ridge, mid-slope vs. valley, floodplain vs. upland, slope aspect, scree slope, good vs. poor drainage etc., as reported by the investigators (P) Water Table Depth Range (m) at the site as reported by the investigators (where available) over the period of investigation (Q) Mean Water Table (WT) Depth (m) at the site as reported by the investigators. In some cases, water table position is inferred from authors’ remarks, such as deeper excavation below a certain depth is prevented by the water table, or site is poorly drained with frequent soil mottling at a certain depth, or hydric soil at a certain depth, or roots were restricted by water-logging at a certain depth. (R) Soil Texture or Type as reported by the investigators, with vertical sequence in some cases; no entry where no soil information is given (S) Nature of soil hardpans or concretions, as reported by the investigators (T) Depth at which hardpans / concretions are encountered, as reported by the investigators (U) Bedrock types and degree of fracturing, as reported by the investigators (V) Depth of bedrock, as reported by the investigators (W) Human Alterations (such as croplands/plantations/coppices, plowed, recently burned, fertilized, drained, or irrigated), as reported by the investigators (X-Y) Latitude and Longitude (in decimal degree) Precise geographic locations are often not provided, or roughly provided to the degree and minutes, particularly in the older literature before GPS is widely used in the field. In these cases, GoogleEarth is used to estimate a location that best fits the information provided by the investigators (e.g. 35km SE of a particular city, in a forest surrounded by croplands, on a NE facing slope, etc.). If the authors indicate that heavy equipment is used for excavation, the site is assumed to be near roads. If hydraulic excavation is used and a pond/river is mentioned as the water source, the site is assumed to be near these water features. If the site elevation is given, the site location is further constrained by roaming on GoogleEarth. In some cases detailed maps of the research forests or experimental stations can be found with a Google Search independently, which often have names of research tracks and plots, further constraining the locations. But many of the site locations cannot be constrained and are left undefined. (Z) Elevation of the site (m) Where not reported, elevation is found from GoogleEarth based on reported or estimated latitude-longitude, or the best fit based on authors’ descriptions. (AA) Author Notes, direct quotes from the authors regarding root characteristics not reflected by rooting depth information, such as lateral extent, depth of structural vs. absorbing roots, dimorphic roots, seasonal root demographics, etc., as well as remarks on the site conditions. (AB) Notes on data compilation (e.g., estimating site locations, rooting depth extrapolations etc.), including some comments and notes by us; sometimes direct quotes from authors are placed here in quotation marks when space in AA is limited. "not reported" - data was not available in the reference document and/or an online search of the study site. "not applicable" - for AA and AB - no notes from reference author or us were applicable to report here. A spreadsheet containing observed rooting depths can be accessed in the provided file, as well as references for each citation in the dataset. References 2-334 are those included in Fan et. al, 2017 (observations 1-2,2021). References 335-449 are for the additional observations compiled as part of this study (observations 2,022-2,458). The greatest disappointment in the course of this data compilation effort is that many, many studies only examined the shallow roots down to a few tens of centimeters (e.g., 30cm is very common for fine root biomass and turn-over studies, the standard IPCC sampling depth for soil organic carbon). These data are not recorded here, which unfortunately excluded many studies with otherwise excellent and detailed observations. ### Files and variables #### File: S1-RootingDepthDataset.xls **Description:** Description of dataset, each variable in table and method of recording. Table with each observation and associated variables. Reference list. ## Code/software None ## Access information Other publicly accessible locations of the data: * Online Supplement 1 of Ecography paper - DOI 10.1002/ecog.08034 Data was derived from the following sources: * **Rooting Depth Dataset References** 1\. Y. Fan, G. Miguez-Macho, E.G. Jobbágy, R.B. Jackson, C. Otero-Casal, Hydrologic regulation of plant rooting depth, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.114 (40) 10572-10577, [https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1712381114](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1712381114) (2017). 2\. Aaltonen VT (1920) ACTA Forestrallia Fennica 14. Abreiten Der Forstwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft In Finnland (Heilsingforsiae) doi:10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004. 3\. Abbott M, Fraley Jr L, Reynolds T (1991) Root profiles of selected cold desert shrubs and grasses in disturbed and undisturbed soils. Environ Exp Bot 31(2):165–178. 4\. 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