IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v528y2015i7580d10.1038_nature15539.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Death from drought in tropical forests is triggered by hydraulics not carbon starvation

Author

Listed:
  • L. Rowland

    (School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh)

  • A. C. L. da Costa

    (Centro de Geosciências, Universidade Federal do Pará)

  • D. R. Galbraith

    (School of Geography, University of Leeds)

  • R. S. Oliveira

    (Instituto de Biologia, UNICAMP)

  • O. J. Binks

    (School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh)

  • A. A. R. Oliveira

    (Centro de Geosciências, Universidade Federal do Pará)

  • A. M. Pullen

    (The University of Cambridge)

  • C. E. Doughty

    (Environmental Change Institute, The University of Oxford)

  • D. B. Metcalfe

    (Lund University)

  • S. S. Vasconcelos

    (EMBRAPA Amazônia Oriental)

  • L. V. Ferreira

    (Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi)

  • Y. Malhi

    (Environmental Change Institute, The University of Oxford)

  • J. Grace

    (School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh)

  • M. Mencuccini

    (School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh
    ICREA at CREAF)

  • P. Meir

    (School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh
    Research School of Biology, Australian National University)

Abstract

It has been suggested that carbon starvation, owing to reduced availability of non-structural carbohydrates (NSCs), is an important contributor to tree mortality during drought in tropical rainforests; however, data from the world’s longest-running experimental drought study presented here show no evidence of carbon starvation, and instead the researchers conclude that impaired water hydraulic processes (involving the transport of water from soil to leaf) have a more important role in triggering tree death from long-term drought.

Suggested Citation

  • L. Rowland & A. C. L. da Costa & D. R. Galbraith & R. S. Oliveira & O. J. Binks & A. A. R. Oliveira & A. M. Pullen & C. E. Doughty & D. B. Metcalfe & S. S. Vasconcelos & L. V. Ferreira & Y. Malhi & J., 2015. "Death from drought in tropical forests is triggered by hydraulics not carbon starvation," Nature, Nature, vol. 528(7580), pages 119-122, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:528:y:2015:i:7580:d:10.1038_nature15539
    DOI: 10.1038/nature15539
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature15539
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature15539?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cho, Nanghyun & Agossou, Casimir & Kim, Eunsook & Lim, Jong-Hwan & Seo, Jeong-Wook & Kang, Sinkyu, 2023. "Machine-learning modeling on tree mortality and growth reduction of temperate forests with climatic and ecophysiological parameters," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 483(C).
    2. de Assis Prado, Carlos Henrique Britto & de Brito Melo Trovão, Dilma Maria, 2023. "The woody crown network model incorporates maximum height," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 481(C).
    3. Rius, Bianca Fazio & Filho, João Paulo Darela & Fleischer, Katrin & Hofhansl, Florian & Blanco, Carolina Casagrande & Rammig, Anja & Domingues, Tomas Ferreira & Lapola, David Montenegro, 2023. "Higher functional diversity improves modeling of Amazon forest carbon storage," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 481(C).
    4. William M. Hammond & A. Park Williams & John T. Abatzoglou & Henry D. Adams & Tamir Klein & Rosana López & Cuauhtémoc Sáenz-Romero & Henrik Hartmann & David D. Breshears & Craig D. Allen, 2022. "Global field observations of tree die-off reveal hotter-drought fingerprint for Earth’s forests," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:528:y:2015:i:7580:d:10.1038_nature15539. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.