DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: A catastrophic tropical drought kills hydraulically vulnerable tree species

Abstract

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.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [1];  [1];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [1];  [7];  [7];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [6];  [9];  [1]; ORCiD logo [10]; ORCiD logo [11]
  1. University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN (United States)
  2. Univ. of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS (Australia)
  3. Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC (Canada)
  4. Colby College, Waterville, ME (United States)
  5. Liverpool John Moores Univ. (United Kingdom); University of Veracruz (Mexico)
  6. Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservación (SINAC) Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía (MINAE) (Costa Rica)
  7. Tecnológico de Costa Rica (Costa Rica)
  8. Tecnológico de Costa Rica (Costa Rica); Delft Univ. of Technology (Netherlands)
  9. University of Veracruz (Mexico); Adams State University, Alamosa, CO (United States)
  10. Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States); Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States)
  11. Univ. of Notre Dame, IN (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Science Foundation (NSF); Technological Institute of Costa Rica; Chester Zoo; National Geographic Society; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT); Australian Research Council (ARC)
OSTI Identifier:
1802617
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1615120
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0014363; DEB 1053237; NSF PRFB 1711366; CRN3025; GrantGEO-128040; DP170100761; DESC0014363
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Global Change Biology
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 26; Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 1354-1013
Publisher:
Wiley
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES; biodiversity & conservation; environmental sciences & ecology; extreme drought; hydraulic traits; rainfall seasonality; tree mortality

Citation Formats

Powers, Jennifer S., Vargas G., German, Brodribb, Timothy J., Schwartz, Naomi B., Pérez‐Aviles, Daniel, Smith‐Martin, Chris M., Becknell, Justin M., Aureli, Filippo, Blanco, Roger, Calderón‐Morales, Erick, Calvo‐Alvarado, Julio C., Calvo‐Obando, Ana Julieta, Chavarría, María Marta, Carvajal‐Vanegas, Dorian, Jiménez‐Rodríguez, César D., Murillo Chacon, Evin, Schaffner, Colleen M., Werden, Leland K., Xu, Xiangtao, and Medvigy, David. A catastrophic tropical drought kills hydraulically vulnerable tree species. United States: N. p., 2020. Web. doi:10.1111/gcb.15037.
Powers, Jennifer S., Vargas G., German, Brodribb, Timothy J., Schwartz, Naomi B., Pérez‐Aviles, Daniel, Smith‐Martin, Chris M., Becknell, Justin M., Aureli, Filippo, Blanco, Roger, Calderón‐Morales, Erick, Calvo‐Alvarado, Julio C., Calvo‐Obando, Ana Julieta, Chavarría, María Marta, Carvajal‐Vanegas, Dorian, Jiménez‐Rodríguez, César D., Murillo Chacon, Evin, Schaffner, Colleen M., Werden, Leland K., Xu, Xiangtao, & Medvigy, David. A catastrophic tropical drought kills hydraulically vulnerable tree species. United States. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15037
Powers, Jennifer S., Vargas G., German, Brodribb, Timothy J., Schwartz, Naomi B., Pérez‐Aviles, Daniel, Smith‐Martin, Chris M., Becknell, Justin M., Aureli, Filippo, Blanco, Roger, Calderón‐Morales, Erick, Calvo‐Alvarado, Julio C., Calvo‐Obando, Ana Julieta, Chavarría, María Marta, Carvajal‐Vanegas, Dorian, Jiménez‐Rodríguez, César D., Murillo Chacon, Evin, Schaffner, Colleen M., Werden, Leland K., Xu, Xiangtao, and Medvigy, David. Thu . "A catastrophic tropical drought kills hydraulically vulnerable tree species". United States. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15037. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1802617.
@article{osti_1802617,
title = {A catastrophic tropical drought kills hydraulically vulnerable tree species},
author = {Powers, Jennifer S. and Vargas G., German and Brodribb, Timothy J. and Schwartz, Naomi B. and Pérez‐Aviles, Daniel and Smith‐Martin, Chris M. and Becknell, Justin M. and Aureli, Filippo and Blanco, Roger and Calderón‐Morales, Erick and Calvo‐Alvarado, Julio C. and Calvo‐Obando, Ana Julieta and Chavarría, María Marta and Carvajal‐Vanegas, Dorian and Jiménez‐Rodríguez, César D. and Murillo Chacon, Evin and Schaffner, Colleen M. and Werden, Leland K. and Xu, Xiangtao and Medvigy, David},
abstractNote = {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.},
doi = {10.1111/gcb.15037},
journal = {Global Change Biology},
number = 5,
volume = 26,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Feb 13 00:00:00 EST 2020},
month = {Thu Feb 13 00:00:00 EST 2020}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 116 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Save / Share:

Works referenced in this record:

Biogeographic distributions of neotropical trees reflect their directly measured drought tolerances
journal, August 2017

  • Esquivel-Muelbert, Adriane; Galbraith, David; Dexter, Kyle G.
  • Scientific Reports, Vol. 7, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-08105-8

Diversity and structure of regenerating tropical dry forests in Costa Rica: Geographic patterns and environmental drivers
journal, September 2009

  • Powers, Jennifer S.; Becknell, Justin M.; Irving, Jennifer
  • Forest Ecology and Management, Vol. 258, Issue 6
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2008.10.036

Deforestation and forest restoration in Guanacaste, Costa Rica: Putting conservation policies in context
journal, September 2009

  • Calvo-Alvarado, J.; McLennan, B.; Sánchez-Azofeifa, A.
  • Forest Ecology and Management, Vol. 258, Issue 6
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2008.10.035

Will seasonally dry tropical forests be sensitive or resistant to future changes in rainfall regimes?
journal, February 2017

  • Allen, Kara; Dupuy, Juan Manuel; Gei, Maria G.
  • Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 12, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aa5968

Triggers of tree mortality under drought
journal, June 2018


Post-drought decline of the Amazon carbon sink
journal, August 2018


A drought-induced pervasive increase in tree mortality across Canada's boreal forests
journal, November 2011

  • Peng, Changhui; Ma, Zhihai; Lei, Xiangdong
  • Nature Climate Change, Vol. 1, Issue 9
  • DOI: 10.1038/nclimate1293

Effect of drought on productivity in a Costa Rican tropical dry forest
journal, March 2018

  • Castro, S. M.; Sanchez-Azofeifa, G. A.; Sato, H.
  • Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 13, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aaacbc

Assessing regional drought impacts on vegetation and evapotranspiration: a case study in Guanacaste, Costa Rica
journal, January 2019

  • Cooley, Savannah S.; Williams, Christopher A.; Fisher, Joshua B.
  • Ecological Applications, Vol. 29, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1002/eap.1834

Trait selection and community weighting are key to understanding ecosystem responses to changing precipitation regimes
journal, May 2018

  • Griffin-Nolan, Robert J.; Bushey, Julie A.; Carroll, Charles J. W.
  • Functional Ecology, Vol. 32, Issue 7
  • DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.13135

Drivers and mechanisms of tree mortality in moist tropical forests
journal, February 2018

  • McDowell, Nate; Allen, Craig D.; Anderson-Teixeira, Kristina
  • New Phytologist, Vol. 219, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1111/nph.15027

Pragmatic hydraulic theory predicts stomatal responses to climatic water deficits
journal, June 2016

  • Sperry, John S.; Wang, Yujie; Wolfe, Brett T.
  • New Phytologist, Vol. 212, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1111/nph.14059

Casting light on xylem vulnerability in an herbaceous species reveals a lack of segmentation
journal, January 2017

  • Skelton, Robert P.; Brodribb, Timothy J.; Choat, Brendan
  • New Phytologist, Vol. 214, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1111/nph.14450

Resilience of seed production to a severe El Niño-induced drought across functional groups and dispersal types
journal, August 2018

  • O'Brien, Michael J.; Peréz-Aviles, Daniel; Powers, Jennifer S.
  • Global Change Biology, Vol. 24, Issue 11
  • DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14416

Tree carbon allocation explains forest drought-kill and recovery patterns
journal, August 2018

  • Trugman, A. T.; Detto, M.; Bartlett, M. K.
  • Ecology Letters, Vol. 21, Issue 10
  • DOI: 10.1111/ele.13136

Larger trees suffer most during drought in forests worldwide
journal, September 2015


Abrupt increases in Amazonian tree mortality due to drought-fire interactions
journal, April 2014

  • Brando, P. M.; Balch, J. K.; Nepstad, D. C.
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 111, Issue 17
  • DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1305499111

Estimating regression models with unknown break-points
journal, January 2003

  • Muggeo, Vito M. R.
  • Statistics in Medicine, Vol. 22, Issue 19
  • DOI: 10.1002/sim.1545

Which trees die during drought? The key role of insect host‐tree selection
journal, April 2019

  • Stephenson, Nathan L.; Das, Adrian J.; Ampersee, Nicholas J.
  • Journal of Ecology, Vol. 107, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.13176

The effect of fungal pathogens on the water and carbon economy of trees: implications for drought-induced mortality
journal, May 2014

  • Oliva, Jonàs; Stenlid, Jan; Martínez-Vilalta, Jordi
  • New Phytologist, Vol. 203, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1111/nph.12857

Drought-mortality relationships for tropical forests
journal, July 2010


Modern Applied Statistics with S
book, August 2002


Pervasive drought legacies in forest ecosystems and their implications for carbon cycle models
journal, July 2015


Relations between stomatal closure, leaf turgor and xylem vulnerability in eight tropical dry forest trees
journal, March 2003


Dry-season decline in tree sapflux is correlated with leaf turgor loss point in a tropical rainforest
journal, August 2018

  • Maréchaux, Isabelle; Bonal, Damien; Bartlett, Megan K.
  • Functional Ecology, Vol. 32, Issue 10
  • DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.13188

Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4
journal, January 2015

  • Bates, Douglas; Mächler, Martin; Bolker, Ben
  • Journal of Statistical Software, Vol. 67, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.18637/jss.v067.i01

Does leaf shedding protect stems from cavitation during seasonal droughts? A test of the hydraulic fuse hypothesis
journal, July 2016

  • Wolfe, Brett T.; Sperry, John S.; Kursar, Thomas A.
  • New Phytologist, Vol. 212, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1111/nph.14087

Plant resistance to drought depends on timely stomatal closure
journal, September 2017

  • Martin-StPaul, Nicolas; Delzon, Sylvain; Cochard, Hervé
  • Ecology Letters, Vol. 20, Issue 11
  • DOI: 10.1111/ele.12851

Variation in stem mortality rates determines patterns of above-ground biomass in Amazonian forests: implications for dynamic global vegetation models
journal, May 2016

  • Johnson, Michelle O.; Galbraith, David; Gloor, Manuel
  • Global Change Biology, Vol. 22, Issue 12
  • DOI: 10.1111/gcb.13315

The Measurement of the Turgor Pressure and the Water Relations of Plants by the Pressure-bomb Technique
journal, January 1972

  • Tyree, M. T.; Hammel, H. T.
  • Journal of Experimental Botany, Vol. 23, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1093/jxb/23.1.267

Consequences of widespread tree mortality triggered by drought and temperature stress
journal, September 2012

  • Anderegg, William R. L.; Kane, Jeffrey M.; Anderegg, Leander D. L.
  • Nature Climate Change, Vol. 3, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/nclimate1635

A global overview of drought and heat-induced tree mortality reveals emerging climate change risks for forests
journal, February 2010

  • Allen, Craig D.; Macalady, Alison K.; Chenchouni, Haroun
  • Forest Ecology and Management, Vol. 259, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2009.09.001

Global convergence in the vulnerability of forests to drought
journal, November 2012

  • Choat, Brendan; Jansen, Steven; Brodribb, Tim J.
  • Nature, Vol. 491, Issue 7426
  • DOI: 10.1038/nature11688

Tree mortality across biomes is promoted by drought intensity, lower wood density and higher specific leaf area
journal, February 2017

  • Greenwood, Sarah; Ruiz-Benito, Paloma; Martínez-Vilalta, Jordi
  • Ecology Letters, Vol. 20, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1111/ele.12748

Within-species patterns challenge our understanding of the leaf economics spectrum
journal, March 2018

  • Anderegg, Leander D. L.; Berner, Logan T.; Badgley, Grayson
  • Ecology Letters, Vol. 21, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1111/ele.12945

Temperate forest health in an era of emerging megadisturbance
journal, August 2015


Drought Sensitivity of the Amazon Rainforest
journal, March 2009


Amazonian rainforest tree mortality driven by climate and functional traits
journal, April 2019


Stomatal protection against hydraulic failure: a comparison of coexisting ferns and angiosperms
journal, June 2004


Trait variation and integration across scales: is the leaf economic spectrum present at local scales?
journal, October 2016

  • Messier, Julie; McGill, Brian J.; Enquist, Brian J.
  • Ecography, Vol. 40, Issue 6
  • DOI: 10.1111/ecog.02006

Meta-analysis reveals that hydraulic traits explain cross-species patterns of drought-induced tree mortality across the globe
journal, April 2016

  • Anderegg, William R. L.; Klein, Tamir; Bartlett, Megan
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 113, Issue 18
  • DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1525678113

Stand age and soils as drivers of plant functional traits and aboveground biomass in secondary tropical dry forest
journal, June 2014

  • Becknell, Justin M.; Powers, Jennifer S.
  • Canadian Journal of Forest Research, Vol. 44, Issue 6
  • DOI: 10.1139/cjfr-2013-0331

Death from drought in tropical forests is triggered by hydraulics not carbon starvation
journal, November 2015

  • Rowland, L.; da Costa, A. C. L.; Galbraith, D. R.
  • Nature, Vol. 528, Issue 7580
  • DOI: 10.1038/nature15539

Mapping xylem failure in disparate organs of whole plants reveals extreme resistance in olive roots
journal, March 2018

  • Rodriguez-Dominguez, Celia M.; Carins Murphy, Madeline R.; Lucani, Christopher
  • New Phytologist, Vol. 218, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1111/nph.15079

Visual quantification of embolism reveals leaf vulnerability to hydraulic failure
journal, January 2016

  • Brodribb, Timothy J.; Skelton, Robert P.; McAdam, Scott A. M.
  • New Phytologist, Vol. 209, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1111/nph.13846

Variation in leaf functional trait values within and across individuals and species: an example from a Costa Rican dry forest
journal, February 2010


Climate extremes and the carbon cycle
journal, August 2013

  • Reichstein, Markus; Bahn, Michael; Ciais, Philippe
  • Nature, Vol. 500, Issue 7462
  • DOI: 10.1038/nature12350

Physiological mechanisms of drought-induced tree mortality are far from being resolved: Letters
journal, March 2010


Stomatal Closure during Leaf Dehydration, Correlation with Other Leaf Physiological Traits
journal, July 2003


Hydraulic traits explain differential responses of Amazonian forests to the 2015 El Niño‐induced drought
journal, May 2019

  • Barros, Fernanda de V.; Bittencourt, Paulo R. L.; Brum, Mauro
  • New Phytologist, Vol. 223, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1111/nph.15909

Inter-comparison and assessment of gridded climate products over tropical forests during the 2015/2016 El Niño
journal, October 2018

  • Burton, C.; Rifai, S.; Malhi, Y.
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Vol. 373, Issue 1760
  • DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0406

Changes in rainfall seasonality in the tropics
journal, May 2013

  • Feng, Xue; Porporato, Amilcare; Rodriguez-Iturbe, Ignacio
  • Nature Climate Change, Vol. 3, Issue 9
  • DOI: 10.1038/nclimate1907

Climatologies at high resolution for the earth’s land surface areas
journal, September 2017

  • Karger, Dirk Nikolaus; Conrad, Olaf; Böhner, Jürgen
  • Scientific Data, Vol. 4, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/sdata.2017.122

Edaphic factors, successional status and functional traits drive habitat associations of trees in naturally regenerating tropical dry forests
journal, September 2018

  • Werden, Leland K.; Becknell, Justin M.; Powers, Jennifer S.
  • Functional Ecology, Vol. 32, Issue 12
  • DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.13206

A catastrophic tropical drought kills hydraulically vulnerable tree species
dataset, January 2021


A catastrophic tropical drought kills hydraulically vulnerable tree species
dataset, January 2021


Works referencing / citing this record:

A catastrophic tropical drought kills hydraulically vulnerable tree species
dataset, January 2020

  • Powers, Jennifer; Vargas-G, German; Brodribb, Timothy
  • The University of British Columbia
  • DOI: 10.14288/1.0398056

A catastrophic tropical drought kills hydraulically vulnerable tree species
dataset, January 2021


A catastrophic tropical drought kills hydraulically vulnerable tree species
dataset, January 2021