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Powers JS, Vargas G G, Brodribb TJ, Schwartz NB, Pérez-Aviles D, Smith-Martin CM, Becknell JM, Aureli F, Blanco R, Calderón-Morales E, Calvo-Alvarado JC, Calvo-Obando AJ, Chavarría MM, Carvajal-Vanegas D, Jiménez-Rodríguez CD, Murillo Chacon E, Schaffner CM, Werden LK, Xu X, Medvigy D. A catastrophic tropical drought kills hydraulically vulnerable tree species. Glob Chang Biol 2020; 26:3122-3133. [PMID: 32053250 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15037] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/02/2019] [Revised: 01/17/2020] [Accepted: 02/02/2020] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
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 20-53 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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer S Powers
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, & Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
- Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
| | - German Vargas G
- Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
| | - Timothy J Brodribb
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tas., Australia
| | - Naomi B Schwartz
- Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
| | - Daniel Pérez-Aviles
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, & Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
| | - Chris M Smith-Martin
- Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
| | | | - Filippo Aureli
- School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK
- Instituto de Neuroetologia, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Mexico
| | - Roger Blanco
- Programa de Investigación, Área de Conservación Guanacaste, Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservación, Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía, Liberia, Costa Rica
| | - Erick Calderón-Morales
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, & Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
| | | | | | - María Marta Chavarría
- Programa de Investigación, Área de Conservación Guanacaste, Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservación, Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía, Liberia, Costa Rica
| | | | - César D Jiménez-Rodríguez
- Escuela de Ingeniería Forestal, Tecnológico de Costa Rica, Cartago, Costa Rica
- Water Resources Section, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
| | - Evin Murillo Chacon
- Programa de Investigación, Área de Conservación Guanacaste, Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservación, Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía, Liberia, Costa Rica
| | - Colleen M Schaffner
- Instituto de Neuroetologia, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Mexico
- Psychology Department, Adams State University, Alamosa, CO, USA
| | - Leland K Werden
- Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
| | - Xiangtao Xu
- Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
| | - David Medvigy
- Department of Biological Science, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA
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