A catastrophic tropical drought kills hydraulically vulnerable tree species
Jennifer S. Powers (University of Minnesota System)
German Vargas G. (University of Minnesota System)
Timothy J. Brodribb (University of Tasmania)
Naomi B. Schwartz (University of British Columbia)
Daniel Pérez-Aviles (University of Minnesota System)
Chris M. Smith-Martin (University of Minnesota System)
Justin M. Becknell (Colby College)
Filippo Aureli (Universidad Veracruzana, Liverpool John Moores University)
César D. Jiménez-Rodríguez (TU Delft - Civil Engineering & Geosciences, Instituto Tecnologico de Costa Rica)
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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.