Hydraulic tradeoffs underlie local variation in tropical forest functional diversity and sensitivity to drought

Jehová Lourenço, Brian J. Enquist, Georg von Arx, Julia Sonsin-Oliveira, Kiyomi Morino, Luciana Dias Thomaz, Camilla Rozindo Dias Milanez

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

Tropical forests are important to the regulation of climate and the maintenance of biodiversity on Earth. However, these ecosystems are threatened by climate change, as temperatures rise and droughts' frequency and duration increase. Xylem anatomical traits are an essential component in understanding and predicting forest responses to changes in water availability. We calculated the community-weighted means and variances of xylem anatomical traits of hydraulic and structural importance (plot-level trait values weighted by species abundance) to assess their linkages to local adaptation and community assembly in response to varying soil water conditions in an environmentally diverse Brazilian Atlantic Forest habitat. Scaling approaches revealed community-level tradeoffs in xylem traits not observed at the species level. Towards drier sites, xylem structural reinforcement and integration balanced against hydraulic efficiency and capacitance xylem traits, leading to changes in plant community diversity. We show how general community assembly rules are reflected in persistent fiber–parenchyma and xylem hydraulic tradeoffs. Trait variation across a moisture gradient is larger between species than within species and is realized mainly through changes in species composition and abundance, suggesting habitat specialization. Modeling efforts to predict tropical forest diversity and drought sensitivity may benefit from adding hydraulic architecture traits into the analysis.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)50-63
Number of pages14
JournalNew Phytologist
Volume234
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2022

Keywords

  • ecological wood anatomy
  • fiber–parenchyma tradeoff
  • functional wood anatomy
  • quantitative wood anatomy
  • safety–efficiency tradeoff
  • trait-based ecology
  • tropical plant communities
  • water table depth gradient

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Physiology
  • Plant Science

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