Rowland, L, Da Costa, ACL, Galbraith, DR et al. (12 more authors) (2015) Death from drought in tropical forests is triggered by hydraulics not carbon starvation. Nature, 528 (7580). pp. 119-122. ISSN 0028-0836
Abstract
Drought threatens tropical rainforests over seasonal to decadal timescales, but the drivers of tree mortality following drought remain poorly understood. It has been suggested that reduced availability of non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) critically increases mortality risk through insufficient carbon supply to metabolism ('carbon starvation'). However, little is known about how NSC stores are affected by drought, especially over the long term, and whether they are more important than hydraulic processes in determining drought-induced mortality. Using data from the world's longest-running experimental drought study in tropical rainforest (in the Brazilian Amazon), we test whether carbon starvation or deterioration of the water-conducting pathways from soil to leaf trigger tree mortality. Biomass loss from mortality in the experimentally droughted forest increased substantially after >10 years of reduced soil moisture availability. The mortality signal was dominated by the death of large trees, which were at a much greater risk of hydraulic deterioration than smaller trees. However, we find no evidence that the droughted trees suffered carbon starvation, as their NSC concentrations were similar to those of non-droughted trees, and growth rates did not decline in either living or dying trees. Our results indicate that hydraulics, rather than carbon starvation, triggers tree death from drought in tropical rainforest.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Nature. 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: | 07 Jan 2016 11:31 |
Last Modified: | 10 Apr 2019 09:37 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature15539 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/nature15539 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:93308 |