Let’s start thinking about water!

Differences in the hydration state of riparian pecan trees between rural and urban settings

Urban riparian zones are hydrologically different than rural ones due to development and human-forced changes in hydrology both in flooding and water availability. Snook and pals took a look at pecan trees along a rural stretch of South Onion Creek and the urbanized Waller Creek in Austin. Whereas South Onion Creek is characterized by intermittent flows, especially during droughts, Waller Creek often shows consistent flows due to increased recharge from irrigation and infrastructure leakage. Interestingly, urban trees act differently before rainfall events than rural trees. Rural trees squint their stomata before rainfalls to keep moisture in, while urban trees leave them open due to easy access to water. Rural trees, just like rural Texans, seem to understand the value of water better than their urban counterparts.

Swimming performance assessments of fish species of greatest conservation need to inform future stream crossing designs in Texas

Along with the growth in Texas is the growth of our roadways as they spider across the state to get all those people to the latest Starbucks opening. Part of building a roadway is building bridges over waterways. Certain bridges can affect the local flow rate in a river or stream. If a bridge directs flow beneath it through culverts, those structures can increase the flow rate like a swim spa and, as an unintended consequence, prevent fish from moving upstream. To optimize future designs and perhaps modify current ones, Emadi and amigos evaluated the swimming ability of adult and juvenile Guadalupe Bass, Guadalupe Roundnose Minnow, Guadalupe Darter, and Plateau Shiner in a sort of minnow Olympics.

They additionally conducted these tests at various water temperatures reflective of the Edwards Plateau Ecoregion of Texas. In general, warmer fish can swim quite a bit faster than cold fish. The slothiest speed of 16.5 centimeters per second (0.37 miles per hour) was for juvie Guadalupe bass at 15 °C (59 °F), with the gold medal going to the adult Plateau Shiner clocking in at 54.8 centimeters per second (1.23 miles per hour) at 30 °C (86 °F).

Biochar impacts on soil water dynamics: knowns, unknowns, and research directions

Biochar is a form of charcoal produced from burning wood chips, plant residues, manure, or other agricultural waste products in an oxygen-limited environment. Biochar has gained a lot of attention as a way of sequestering carbon, decreasing carbon release from soils, and increasing water retention in soils. In this paper, Acharya (a perfect name for this paper, right?) and hobnobbers review the literature on what is known and needs more study on that char.

Despite the ridiculous decision to turn biochar into an acronym (BC; why? WHY?!?!), the authors provide an excellent one-stop shop for the latest greatest on BC. They found a lot of promising attributes of biochar, including increasing water-holding capacity with little impact on soil water infiltration, increasing porosity and soil aggregation, reducing soil compaction, increasing the population of burrowing invertebrates, and increasing plant-available water in coarser soils. On the negative side, biochar may induce soil water repellency, maybe too expensive, and may not be applicable to all soils. Ultimately, while the authors conclude that biochar has “transformative potential” and “promising avenues for sustainable water management,” they call for studying large-scale applications and conducting long-term field studies across different management, climate, and soil types to fully understand biochar’s effects on soil-water dynamics.