TY - JOUR
T1 - The importance of tropical tree-ring chronologies for global change research
AU - Groenendijk, Peter
AU - Babst, Flurin
AU - Trouet, Valerie
AU - Fan, Ze Xin
AU - Granato-Souza, Daniela
AU - Locosselli, Giuliano Maselli
AU - Mokria, Mulugeta
AU - Panthi, Shankar
AU - Pumijumnong, Nathsuda
AU - Abiyu, Abrham
AU - Acuña-Soto, Rodolfo
AU - Adenesky-Filho, Eduardo
AU - Alfaro-Sánchez, Raquel
AU - Anholetto Junior, Claudio Roberto
AU - Aragão, José Roberto Vieira
AU - Assis-Pereira, Gabriel
AU - Astudillo-Sánchez, Claudia C.
AU - Carolina Barbosa, Ana
AU - Barreto, Nathan de Oliveira
AU - Battipaglia, Giovanna
AU - Beeckman, Hans
AU - Botosso, Paulo Cesar
AU - Bourland, Nils
AU - Bräuning, Achim
AU - Brienen, Roel
AU - Brookhouse, Matthew
AU - Buajan, Supaporn
AU - Buckley, Brendan M.
AU - Camarero, J. Julio
AU - Carrillo-Parra, Artemio
AU - Ceccantini, Gregório
AU - Centeno-Erguera, Librado R.
AU - Cerano-Paredes, Julián
AU - Cervantes-Martínez, Rosalinda
AU - Chanthorn, Wirong
AU - Chen, Ya Jun
AU - Cintra, Bruno Barçante Ladvocat
AU - Cornejo-Oviedo, Eladio Heriberto
AU - Cortés-Cortés, Otoniel
AU - Costa, Clayane Matos
AU - Couralet, Camille
AU - Crispin-DelaCruz, Doris Bianca
AU - D'Arrigo, Rosanne
AU - David, Diego A.
AU - De Ridder, Maaike
AU - Del Valle, Jorge Ignacio
AU - Díaz-Carrillo, Oscar A.
AU - Dobner, Mário
AU - Doucet, Jean Louis
AU - Dünisch, Oliver
AU - Enquist, Brian J.
AU - Esemann-Quadros, Karin
AU - Esquivel-Arriaga, Gerardo
AU - Fayolle, Adeline
AU - Fenilli, Tatiele Anete Bergamo
AU - Ferrero, M. Eugenia
AU - Fichtler, Esther
AU - Finnegan, Patrick M.
AU - Fontana, Claudia
AU - Francisco, Kainana S.
AU - Fu, Pei Li
AU - Galvão, Franklin
AU - Gebrekirstos, Aster
AU - Giraldo, Jorge A.
AU - Gloor, Emanuel
AU - Godoy-Veiga, Milena
AU - Guerra, Anthony
AU - Haneca, Kristof
AU - Harley, Grant Logan
AU - Heinrich, Ingo
AU - Helle, Gerhard
AU - Hernández-Díaz, José Ciro
AU - Hornink, Bruna
AU - Hubau, Wannes
AU - Inga, Janet G.
AU - Islam, Mahmuda
AU - Jiang, Yu mei
AU - Kaib, Mark
AU - Hassan Khamisi, Zakia
AU - Koprowski, Marcin
AU - Layme, Eva
AU - Leffler, A. Joshua
AU - Ligot, Gauthier
AU - Lisi, Claudio Sergio
AU - Loader, Neil J.
AU - Lobo, Francisco de Almeida
AU - Longhi-Santos, Tomaz
AU - Lopez, Lidio
AU - López-Hernández, María I.
AU - Lousada, José Luís Penetra Cerveira
AU - Manzanedo, Rubén D.
AU - Marcon, Amanda K.
AU - Maxwell, Justin T.
AU - Mendivelso, Hooz A.
AU - Mendoza-Villa, Omar N.
AU - Menezes, Ítallo Romany Nunes
AU - Montóia, Valdinez Ribeiro
AU - Moors, Eddy
AU - Moreno, Miyer
AU - Muñiz-Castro, Miguel Angel
AU - Nabais, Cristina
AU - Nathalang, Anuttara
AU - Ngoma, Justine
AU - Nogueira, Francisco de Carvalho
AU - Oliveira, Juliano Morales
AU - Olmedo, Gabriela Morais
AU - Ortega-Rodriguez, Daigard Ricardo
AU - Ortíz, Carmen Eugenia Rodríguez
AU - Pagotto, Mariana Alves
AU - Paredes-Villanueva, Kathelyn
AU - Pérez-De-Lis, Gonzalo
AU - Ponce Calderón, Laura Patricia
AU - Portal-Cahuana, Leif Armando
AU - Pucha-Cofrep, Darwin Alexander
AU - Quadri, Paulo
AU - Rahman, Mizanur
AU - Ramírez, Jorge Andrés
AU - Requena-Rojas, Edilson Jimmy
AU - Reyes-Flores, Judith
AU - Ribeiro, Adauto de Souza
AU - Robertson, Iain
AU - Roig, Fidel Alejandro
AU - Roquette, José Guilherme
AU - Rubio-Camacho, Ernesto Alonso
AU - Sánchez-Salguero, Raúl
AU - Sass-Klaassen, Ute
AU - Schöngart, Jochen
AU - Scipioni, Marcelo Callegari
AU - Sheppard, Paul R.
AU - Silva, Lucas C.R.
AU - Slotta, Franziska
AU - Soria-Díaz, Leroy
AU - Sousa, Luciana K.V.S.
AU - Speer, James H.
AU - Therrell, Matthew D.
AU - Ticse-Otarola, Ginette
AU - Tomazello-Filho, Mario
AU - Torbenson, Max C.A.
AU - Tor-Ngern, Pantana
AU - Touchan, Ramzi
AU - Van Den Bulcke, Jan
AU - Vázquez-Selem, Lorenzo
AU - Velázquez-Pérez, Adín H.
AU - Venegas-González, Alejandro
AU - Villalba, Ricardo
AU - Villanueva-Diaz, Jose
AU - Vlam, Mart
AU - Vourlitis, George
AU - Wehenkel, Christian
AU - Wils, Tommy
AU - Zavaleta, Erika S.
AU - Zewdu, Eshetu Asfaw
AU - Zhang, Yong Jiang
AU - Zhou, Zhe Kun
AU - Zuidema, Pieter A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2025/5/1
Y1 - 2025/5/1
N2 - Tropical forests and woodlands are key components of the global carbon and water cycles. Yet, how climate change affects these biogeochemical cycles is poorly understood because of scarce long-term observations of tropical tree growth. The recent rise in tropical tree-ring studies may help to fill this gap, but a large-scale quantitative analysis of their potential in global change research is missing. We compiled a list of all tropical tree species known to form annual tree rings and built a network encompassing 492 tropical ring-width chronologies to evaluate the potential to generate insights on climate sensitivity of woody productivity and to build centuries-long reconstructions of climate variability. We assess chronology quality, length, and climatic representativeness and explore how these change along climatic gradients. Finally, we applied species-distribution modeling to identify regions with potential for tree-ring studies in ecological and climatic studies. The number of tropical chronologies has rapidly increased, with ∼400 added over the past two decades. Yet, tree-ring studies are biased towards high-elevation locations, with gaps in warmer and wetter climates, on the African continent, and for angiosperm species. The longest chronologies with strongest climate signals (i.e., synchronous growth variations among trees) are from cool regions. In wet regions, climate signals and precipitation sensitivity decrease. Most tropical regions harbor 5–15 (and up to 80) species with proven potential to generate chronologies. The potential for long climate reconstructions is particularly high in drier high elevation sites. Our findings support strategies to effectively expand tree-ring research in the tropics, by targeting specific species and regions. Tropical dendrochronology can importantly contribute to global change research by generating historical context of climate extremes, quantifying climate sensitivity of woody productivity and benchmarking vegetation models.
AB - Tropical forests and woodlands are key components of the global carbon and water cycles. Yet, how climate change affects these biogeochemical cycles is poorly understood because of scarce long-term observations of tropical tree growth. The recent rise in tropical tree-ring studies may help to fill this gap, but a large-scale quantitative analysis of their potential in global change research is missing. We compiled a list of all tropical tree species known to form annual tree rings and built a network encompassing 492 tropical ring-width chronologies to evaluate the potential to generate insights on climate sensitivity of woody productivity and to build centuries-long reconstructions of climate variability. We assess chronology quality, length, and climatic representativeness and explore how these change along climatic gradients. Finally, we applied species-distribution modeling to identify regions with potential for tree-ring studies in ecological and climatic studies. The number of tropical chronologies has rapidly increased, with ∼400 added over the past two decades. Yet, tree-ring studies are biased towards high-elevation locations, with gaps in warmer and wetter climates, on the African continent, and for angiosperm species. The longest chronologies with strongest climate signals (i.e., synchronous growth variations among trees) are from cool regions. In wet regions, climate signals and precipitation sensitivity decrease. Most tropical regions harbor 5–15 (and up to 80) species with proven potential to generate chronologies. The potential for long climate reconstructions is particularly high in drier high elevation sites. Our findings support strategies to effectively expand tree-ring research in the tropics, by targeting specific species and regions. Tropical dendrochronology can importantly contribute to global change research by generating historical context of climate extremes, quantifying climate sensitivity of woody productivity and benchmarking vegetation models.
KW - Climate sensitivity
KW - Dendrochronology
KW - Growth synchrony
KW - Pantropical tree growth
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85219740566&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109233
DO - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109233
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85219740566
SN - 0277-3791
VL - 355
JO - Quaternary Science Reviews
JF - Quaternary Science Reviews
M1 - 109233
ER -