The understanding of the intra-annual and interannual variability of R\({}_{\rm S}\) and the mechanisms underlying this important process are still poorly explored in water-limited ecosystems [12; 13], because seasonality plays a critical role in determining the temporal patterns and the interactions between biotic and abiotic drivers [14; 15]. Furthermore, spatial heterogeneity of soils and vegetation in drylands is a defining feature that also influences ecosystem C fluxes such as R\({}_{\rm S}\)[16; 17]. Generally, at different temporal scales, R\({}_{\rm S}\) rates are affected by environmental factors such as soil temperature and soil moisture, which are usually considered as the two main controlling factors [18]. However, soil physicochemical properties, substrate supply, soil enzymatic activity and soil microbial community also participate in this process [19; 20; 21]. Furthermore, the crucial role of plant phenology, plant functional types and gross primary production (GPP) in the temporal variability of R\({}_{\rm S}\) has been recognized [22; 23; 24; 25; 26]. For instance, partitioning R\({}_{\rm S}\) into its autotrophic and heterotrophic components to inquire about their contribution is still limited due to methodological challenges, leading to significant uncertainties in estimating the global C budgets [27; 28], although some studies have been able to estimate the autotrophic contribution of R\({}_{\rm S}\), which can represent a significant fraction of the total annual R\({}_{\rm S}\) in ecosystems [29]. Despite that in seasonally dry ecosystems soil moisture (SWC) exerts an overriding influence on ecosystem processes [30; 31], there is still debate about the direct and indirect effects of SWC and the relative importance of different environmental (atmospheric moisture, air temperature, solar radiation, evapotranspiration) and biological drivers (GPP) on R\({}_{\rm S}\)[32; 33; 34]. Globally, tropical dry forests (TDF) are considered an important hot spot of biodiversity, endemism and a fundamental source of goods and ecosystem services, implying high productivity and C storage rates [35; 36]. The most notable feature of this forest is the seasonality caused by the variability of precipitation that leads to well-defined dry periods of low biological activity [37] and active periods with very dynamic eco-physiological activity from the vegetation [38] and soil organisms [39]. Therefore, TDFs support a variety of water-limited tolerant deciduous trees and shrubs with specific adaptive traits such as leaf drop and regrowth, along with thorny and succulent species and a few evergreen species holding their leaves and maintaining ecologically active during dry periods [40; 41; 42]. Similarly, soils from these systems are influenced by seasonal drying-rewetting transitional events that strongly regulate the dynamic of soil biogeochemical processes [43]. For example, high rates of litterfall occur during the dry season, resulting in a forest floor with slow decomposition rates and a low CO\({}_{2}\) release [44; 45]. At the onset of the wet season, litterfall promotes the rapid decomposition and mineralization of forest floor from the previous growing seasons [46], and in conjunction with microbial activity and nutrient transformations triggers a \"Birch effect\", where a large pulse of CO\({}_{2}\) is released upon soil rewetting [47; 48]. TDFs are also one of the most threatened ecosystems due to land-use and land-cover changes due to anthropogenic activities, such as agriculture and grazing. These landscape transformations result in an important loss of vegetation cover [49; 50], creating a mosaic of different stages of forest succession spanning from abandoned lands to secondary and old-growth forests [51].