IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0034074.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Water Availability Is the Main Climate Driver of Neotropical Tree Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Fabien Wagner
  • Vivien Rossi
  • Clément Stahl
  • Damien Bonal
  • Bruno Hérault

Abstract

• Climate models for the coming century predict rainfall reduction in the Amazonian region, including change in water availability for tropical rainforests. Here, we test the extent to which climate variables related to water regime, temperature and irradiance shape the growth trajectories of neotropical trees. • We developed a diameter growth model explicitly designed to work with asynchronous climate and growth data. Growth trajectories of 205 individual trees from 54 neotropical species censused every 2 months over a 4-year period were used to rank 9 climate variables and find the best predictive model. • About 9% of the individual variation in tree growth was imputable to the seasonal variation of climate. Relative extractable water was the main predictor and alone explained more than 60% of the climate effect on tree growth, i.e. 5.4% of the individual variation in tree growth. Furthermore, the global annual tree growth was more dependent on the diameter increment at the onset of the rain season than on the duration of dry season. • The best predictive model included 3 climate variables: relative extractable water, minimum temperature and irradiance. The root mean squared error of prediction (0.035 mm.d–1) was slightly above the mean value of the growth (0.026 mm.d–1). • Amongst climate variables, we highlight the predominant role of water availability in determining seasonal variation in tree growth of neotropical forest trees and the need to include these relationships in forest simulators to test, in silico, the impact of different climate scenarios on the future dynamics of the rainforest.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabien Wagner & Vivien Rossi & Clément Stahl & Damien Bonal & Bruno Hérault, 2012. "Water Availability Is the Main Climate Driver of Neotropical Tree Growth," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(4), pages 1-11, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0034074
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0034074
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0034074
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0034074&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0034074?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hans ter Steege & Nigel C. A. Pitman & Oliver L. Phillips & Jerome Chave & Daniel Sabatier & Alvaro Duque & Jean-François Molino & Marie-Françoise Prévost & Rodolphe Spichiger & Hernán Castellanos & P, 2006. "Continental-scale patterns of canopy tree composition and function across Amazonia," Nature, Nature, vol. 443(7110), pages 444-447, September.
    2. Nadja Rüger & Uta Berger & Stephen P Hubbell & Ghislain Vieilledent & Richard Condit, 2011. "Growth Strategies of Tropical Tree Species: Disentangling Light and Size Effects," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(9), pages 1-10, September.
    3. Calcagno, Vincent & de Mazancourt, Claire, 2010. "glmulti: An R Package for Easy Automated Model Selection with (Generalized) Linear Models," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 34(i12).
    4. Hanqin Tian & Jerry M. Melillo & David W. Kicklighter & A. David McGuire & John V. K. Helfrich & Berrien Moore & Charles J. Vörösmarty, 1998. "Effect of interannual climate variability on carbon storage in Amazonian ecosystems," Nature, Nature, vol. 396(6712), pages 664-667, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bernard W T Coetzee & Kevin J Gaston & Steven L Chown, 2014. "Local Scale Comparisons of Biodiversity as a Test for Global Protected Area Ecological Performance: A Meta-Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(8), pages 1-11, August.
    2. Fernando Abad-Franch & Gonçalo Ferraz & Ciro Campos & Francisco S Palomeque & Mario J Grijalva & H Marcelo Aguilar & Michael A Miles, 2010. "Modeling Disease Vector Occurrence when Detection Is Imperfect: Infestation of Amazonian Palm Trees by Triatomine Bugs at Three Spatial Scales," PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(3), pages 1-11, March.
    3. Eduardo Correia & Rodrigo Calili & José Francisco Pessanha & Maria Fatima Almeida, 2023. "Definition of Regulatory Targets for Electricity Non-Technical Losses: Proposition of an Automatic Model-Selection Technique for Panel Data Regressions," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-22, March.
    4. Scrucca, Luca, 2013. "GA: A Package for Genetic Algorithms in R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 53(i04).
    5. Ji, Yonggang & Lin, Nan & Zhang, Baoxue, 2012. "Model selection in binary and tobit quantile regression using the Gibbs sampler," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 827-839.
    6. Sohngen, Brent & Tian, Xiaohui, 2016. "Global climate change impacts on forests and markets," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 18-26.
    7. László Kovács, 2019. "Applications of Metaheuristics in Insurance," Society and Economy, Akadémiai Kiadó, Hungary, vol. 41(3), pages 371-395, September.
    8. Grubinger, Thomas & Zeileis, Achim & Pfeiffer, Karl-Peter, 2014. "evtree: Evolutionary Learning of Globally Optimal Classification and Regression Trees in R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 61(i01).
    9. Verónica Lloréns-Rico & Ann C. Gregory & Johan Van Weyenbergh & Sander Jansen & Tina Van Buyten & Junbin Qian & Marcos Braz & Soraya Maria Menezes & Pierre Van Mol & Lore Vanderbeke & Christophe Dooms, 2021. "Clinical practices underlie COVID-19 patient respiratory microbiome composition and its interactions with the host," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    10. Miquelajauregui, Yosune & Cumming, Steven G. & Gauthier, Sylvie, 2019. "Short-term responses of boreal carbon stocks to climate change: A simulation study of black spruce forests," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 409(C), pages 1-1.
    11. Guangzhou Wang & Haley M. Burrill & Laura Y. Podzikowski & Maarten B. Eppinga & Fusuo Zhang & Junling Zhang & Peggy A. Schultz & James D. Bever, 2023. "Dilution of specialist pathogens drives productivity benefits from diversity in plant mixtures," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.
    12. Kamaljit Banger & Hanqin Tian & Bo Tao & Wei Ren & Shufen Pan & Shree Dangal & Jia Yang, 2015. "Terrestrial net primary productivity in India during 1901–2010: contributions from multiple environmental changes," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 132(4), pages 575-588, October.
    13. Hongbo Guo & Enzai Du & César Terrer & Robert B. Jackson, 2024. "Global distribution of surface soil organic carbon in urban greenspaces," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, December.
    14. Lisa Cherry & Darren Mollendor & Bill Eisenstein & Terri S. Hogue & Katharyn Peterman & John E. McCray, 2019. "Predicting Parcel-Scale Redevelopment Using Linear and Logistic Regression—the Berkeley Neighborhood Denver, Colorado Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-16, March.
    15. Joon-myoung Kwon & Ki-Hyun Jeon & Hyue Mee Kim & Min Jeong Kim & Sungmin Lim & Kyung-Hee Kim & Pil Sang Song & Jinsik Park & Rak Kyeong Choi & Byung-Hee Oh, 2019. "Deep-learning-based risk stratification for mortality of patients with acute myocardial infarction," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(10), pages 1-15, October.
    16. Lingyan Zhou & Xuhui Zhou & Yanghui He & Yuling Fu & Zhenggang Du & Meng Lu & Xiaoying Sun & Chenghao Li & Chunyan Lu & Ruiqiang Liu & Guiyao Zhou & Shahla Hosseni Bai & Madhav P. Thakur, 2022. "Global systematic review with meta-analysis shows that warming effects on terrestrial plant biomass allocation are influenced by precipitation and mycorrhizal association," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    17. Konstantin A. Kholodilin, 2016. "War, housing rents, and free market: Berlin's rental housing during World War I," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 20(3), pages 322-344.
    18. Konstantin A. Kholodilin, 2015. "War, Housing Rents, and Free Market: A Case of Berlin's Rental Housing Market during the World War I," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1477, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    19. Ervin, Daniel & Lopéz-Carr, David & Riosmena, Fernando & Ryan, Sadie J., 2020. "Examining the relationship between migration and forest cover change in Mexico from 2001 to 2010," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    20. Linares-Rodriguez, Alvaro & Ruiz-Arias, José Antonio & Pozo-Vazquez, David & Tovar-Pescador, Joaquin, 2013. "An artificial neural network ensemble model for estimating global solar radiation from Meteosat satellite images," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 636-645.

    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:plo:pone00:0034074. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.