Regional and local determinants of drought resilience in tropical forests
Abstract The increase in severity of droughts associated with greater mortality and reduced vegetation growth is one of the main threats to tropical forests. Drought resilience of tropical forests is affected by multiple biotic and abiotic factors varying at different scales. Identifying those facto...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Wiley
2022-05-01
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| Series: | Ecology and Evolution |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8943 |
| _version_ | 1817986412237029376 |
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| author | Renan Köpp Hollunder Mário Luís Garbin Fabio Rubio Scarano Pierre Mariotte |
| author_facet | Renan Köpp Hollunder Mário Luís Garbin Fabio Rubio Scarano Pierre Mariotte |
| author_sort | Renan Köpp Hollunder |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract The increase in severity of droughts associated with greater mortality and reduced vegetation growth is one of the main threats to tropical forests. Drought resilience of tropical forests is affected by multiple biotic and abiotic factors varying at different scales. Identifying those factors can help understanding the resilience to ongoing and future climate change. Altitude leads to high climate variation and to different forest formations, principally moist or dry tropical forests with contrasted vegetation structure. Each tropical forest can show distinct responses to droughts. Locally, topography is also a key factor controlling biotic and abiotic factors related to drought resilience in each forest type. Here, we show that topography has key roles controlling biotic and abiotic factors in each forest type. The most important abiotic factors are soil nutrients, water availability, and microclimate. The most important biotic factors are leaf economic and hydraulic plant traits, and vegetation structure. Both dry tropical forests and ridges (steeper and drier habitats) are more sensitive to droughts than moist tropical forest and valleys (flatter and wetter habitats). The higher mortality in ridges suggests that conservative traits are not sufficient to protect plants from drought in drier steeper habitats. Our synthesis highlights that altitude and topography gradients are essential to understand mechanisms of tropical forest's resilience to future drought events. We described important factors related to drought resilience, however, many important knowledge gaps remain. Filling those gaps will help improve future practices and studies about mitigation capacity, conservation, and restoration of tropical ecosystems. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-14T00:08:57Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-ad787ac9c9de400084b7a7f2650b419d |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2045-7758 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-14T00:08:57Z |
| publishDate | 2022-05-01 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Ecology and Evolution |
| spelling | doaj.art-ad787ac9c9de400084b7a7f2650b419d2022-12-22T02:23:25ZengWileyEcology and Evolution2045-77582022-05-01125n/an/a10.1002/ece3.8943Regional and local determinants of drought resilience in tropical forestsRenan Köpp Hollunder0Mário Luís Garbin1Fabio Rubio Scarano2Pierre Mariotte3Programa de Pós‐graduação em Ecologia IB, CCS, Ilha do Fundão Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro BrazilDepartamento de Biologia Centro de Ciências Exatas, Naturais e da Saúde Alto Universitário Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo Alegre BrazilPrograma de Pós‐graduação em Ecologia IB, CCS, Ilha do Fundão Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro BrazilAgroscope Grazing Systems Nyon SwitzerlandAbstract The increase in severity of droughts associated with greater mortality and reduced vegetation growth is one of the main threats to tropical forests. Drought resilience of tropical forests is affected by multiple biotic and abiotic factors varying at different scales. Identifying those factors can help understanding the resilience to ongoing and future climate change. Altitude leads to high climate variation and to different forest formations, principally moist or dry tropical forests with contrasted vegetation structure. Each tropical forest can show distinct responses to droughts. Locally, topography is also a key factor controlling biotic and abiotic factors related to drought resilience in each forest type. Here, we show that topography has key roles controlling biotic and abiotic factors in each forest type. The most important abiotic factors are soil nutrients, water availability, and microclimate. The most important biotic factors are leaf economic and hydraulic plant traits, and vegetation structure. Both dry tropical forests and ridges (steeper and drier habitats) are more sensitive to droughts than moist tropical forest and valleys (flatter and wetter habitats). The higher mortality in ridges suggests that conservative traits are not sufficient to protect plants from drought in drier steeper habitats. Our synthesis highlights that altitude and topography gradients are essential to understand mechanisms of tropical forest's resilience to future drought events. We described important factors related to drought resilience, however, many important knowledge gaps remain. Filling those gaps will help improve future practices and studies about mitigation capacity, conservation, and restoration of tropical ecosystems.https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8943climate changeEl Niñogrowthmortalityrecoveryresistance |
| spellingShingle | Renan Köpp Hollunder Mário Luís Garbin Fabio Rubio Scarano Pierre Mariotte Regional and local determinants of drought resilience in tropical forests Ecology and Evolution climate change El Niño growth mortality recovery resistance |
| title | Regional and local determinants of drought resilience in tropical forests |
| title_full | Regional and local determinants of drought resilience in tropical forests |
| title_fullStr | Regional and local determinants of drought resilience in tropical forests |
| title_full_unstemmed | Regional and local determinants of drought resilience in tropical forests |
| title_short | Regional and local determinants of drought resilience in tropical forests |
| title_sort | regional and local determinants of drought resilience in tropical forests |
| topic | climate change El Niño growth mortality recovery resistance |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8943 |
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