Tree mortality across biomes is promoted by drought intensity,lower wood density and higher specific leaf area |
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| Authors: | Sarah Greenwood Paloma Ruiz‐Benito Jordi Martínez‐Vilalta Francisco Lloret Thomas Kitzberger Craig D Allen Rod Fensham Daniel C Laughlin Jens Kattge Gerhard Bönisch Nathan J B Kraft Alistair S Jump |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland;2. Forest Ecology and Restoration Group, Life Sciences Department, Universidad de Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain;3. CREAF Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain;4. Universidad Autònoma Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain;5. Laboratorio Ecotono, INIBIOMA, CONICET‐Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina;6. U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center, New Mexico Landscapes Field Station, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA;7. Queensland Herbarium, Environmental Protection Agency, Toowong, Qld, Australia;8. School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld, Australia;9. Environmental Research Institute and School of Science, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand;10. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany;11. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle‐Jena‐Leipzig Deutscher Platz 5e, Leipzig, Germany;12. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA |
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| Abstract: | Drought events are increasing globally, and reports of consequent forest mortality are widespread. However, due to a lack of a quantitative global synthesis, it is still not clear whether drought‐induced mortality rates differ among global biomes and whether functional traits influence the risk of drought‐induced mortality. To address these uncertainties, we performed a global meta‐analysis of 58 studies of drought‐induced forest mortality. Mortality rates were modelled as a function of drought, temperature, biomes, phylogenetic and functional groups and functional traits. We identified a consistent global‐scale response, where mortality increased with drought severity log mortality (trees trees?1 year?1) increased 0.46 (95% CI = 0.2–0.7) with one SPEI unit drought intensity]. We found no significant differences in the magnitude of the response depending on forest biomes or between angiosperms and gymnosperms or evergreen and deciduous tree species. Functional traits explained some of the variation in drought responses between species (i.e. increased from 30 to 37% when wood density and specific leaf area were included). Tree species with denser wood and lower specific leaf area showed lower mortality responses. Our results illustrate the value of functional traits for understanding patterns of drought‐induced tree mortality and suggest that mortality could become increasingly widespread in the future. |
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| Keywords: | Climate change die‐off forest dynamics functional traits |
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