A catastrophic tropical drought kills hydraulically vulnerable tree species
-
Powers, Jennifer1
- Vargas-G, German1
- Brodribb, Timothy2
- Schwartz, Naomi3
- Perez-Aviles, Daniel1
- Smith-Martin, Chris1
- Becknell, Justin4
- Aureli, Filippo5
- Blanco, Roger6
- Calderón-Morales, Erick1
- Calvo-Alvarado, Julio César7
- Calvo-Obando, Ana Julieta7
- Chavarría, María Marta6
- Carvajal-Vanegas, Dorian7
- Jiménez-Rodríguez, César Dionisio7
- Murillo Chacon, Evin7
- Schaffner, Colleen8
- Werden, Leland1
- Xu, Xiangtao9
- Medvigy, David10
- 1. University of Minnesota
- 2. University of Tasmania
- 3. University of British Columbia
- 4. Colby College
- 5. Liverpool John Moores University
- 6. Área de Conservación Guanacaste*
- 7. Costa Rica Institute of Technology
- 8. Universidad Veracruzana
- 9. Harvard University
- 10. University of Notre Dame
Description
Drought-related tree mortality is now a widespread phenomenon predicted to increase in magnitude with climate change. However, the patterns of which species and trees are most vulnerable to drought, and the underlying mechanisms have remained elusive, in part due to the lack of relevant data and difficulty of predicting the location of catastrophic drought years in advance. We used long‐term demographic records and extensive databases of functional traits and distribution patterns to understand the responses of 20 to 53 species to an extreme drought in a seasonally dry tropical forest in Costa Rica, which occurred during the 2015 El Niño Southern Oscillation event. Overall, species-specific mortality rates during the drought ranged from 0% to 34%, and varied little as a function of tree size. By contrast, hydraulic safety margins correlated well with probability of mortality among species, while morphological or leaf economics spectrum traits did not. This firmly suggests hydraulic traits as targets for future research.
Notes
All data and associated R scripts are contained in the files. The R scripts refer to the three main questions asked in the associated publication.
Funding provided by: National Science Foundation
Crossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001
Award Number: CAREER grant DEB 1053237
Funding provided by: National Science Foundation
Crossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001
Award Number: PRFB 1711366
Funding provided by: National Science Foundation
Crossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001
Award Number: CRN3025
Funding provided by: Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica
Crossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100005388
Award Number:
Funding provided by: Australian Research Council
Crossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000923
Award Number: DP170100761
Funding provided by: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología
Crossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003141
Award Number:
Funding provided by: U.S. Department of Energy
Crossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000015
Award Number: DESC0014363
Files
GCB_ACG_Mortality_2020.zip
Additional details
Related works
- Is cited by
- 10.1111/gcb.15037 (DOI)