Fig 1.
Experimental plots located in the south-central Great Plains USA at the Oklahoma State University Research Range (A) showing grassland site (B), a close-up of a grass tray interceptor (C), open stand site (D), dense stand site showing rain gauges and stemflow collection tanks (E), and closed stand site showing stemflow collector collar (F).
Table 1.
Characteristics of the 25 redcedar trees (J. virginiana) used in this study to represent open, dense and closed stands.
Fig 2.
Total daily rainfall (A), average daily air temperature (B), average daily relative humidity (C), total daily radiation (D) and total daily reference ET (E) for the experimental period in 2011.
The bold lines are 10-day moving averages. Inset in panel A is the histogram of frequency distribution of rainfall amounts for 41 rainfall events.
Fig 3.
Non-linear models describing average throughfall (TF) ratios and stemflow (SF) ratios for redcedar trees (A) and TF for tallgrass prairie vegetation at different growing stages (B) under the range of event rainfall sizes.
Fig 4.
Canopy storage capacities (S) of prairie grasses at different growing stages (A) and of redcedar trees with different canopy structure (B).
The dotted lines are the 1:1 line and the solid lines are the minimum storage envelope line.
Fig 5.
Relationship between annual stemflow funneling ratios and redcedar basal area for the different canopy types.
Fig 6.
Relationships between event stemflow funneling ratios and rainfall depth for the different canopy types.
Fig 7.
Effects of redcedar canopy area and DBH on the fraction of annual precipitation measured as throughfall and stemflow and interception for the different canopy types.
Fig 8.
Temporal relationship of rainfall interception ratios for redcedars (A) (Error bars are standard errors, n = 5) and grassland (B) (Error bars are standard errors, n = 8).
Fig 9.
Comparison of accumulated interception loss to tallgrass prairie and redcedars.