Aguirre-Gutiérrez, J, Berenguer, E, Oliveras Menor, I et al. (50 more authors) (2022) Functional susceptibility of tropical forests to climate change. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 6 (7). pp. 878-889. ISSN 2397-334X
Abstract
Tropical forests are some of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world, yet their functioning is threatened by anthropogenic disturbances and climate change. Global actions to conserve tropical forests could be enhanced by having local knowledge on the forestsʼ functional diversity and functional redundancy as proxies for their capacity to respond to global environmental change. Here we create estimates of plant functional diversity and redundancy across the tropics by combining a dataset of 16 morphological, chemical and photosynthetic plant traits sampled from 2,461 individual trees from 74 sites distributed across four continents together with local climate data for the past half century. Our findings suggest a strong link between climate and functional diversity and redundancy with the three trait groups responding similarly across the tropics and climate gradient. We show that drier tropical forests are overall less functionally diverse than wetter forests and that functional redundancy declines with increasing soil water and vapour pressure deficits. Areas with high functional diversity and high functional redundancy tend to better maintain ecosystem functioning, such as aboveground biomass, after extreme weather events. Our predictions suggest that the lower functional diversity and lower functional redundancy of drier tropical forests, in comparison with wetter forests, may leave them more at risk of shifting towards alternative states in face of further declines in water availability across tropical regions.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2022. This is an author produced version of an article published in Nature Ecology and Evolution. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 24 May 2022 08:58 |
Last Modified: | 16 Nov 2022 01:13 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Research |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41559-022-01747-6 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:187197 |