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A multi-species synthesis of physiological mechanisms in drought-induced tree mortality

Henry D. Adams, +65 more
- 01 Sep 2017 - 
- Vol. 1, Iss: 9, pp 1285-1291
TLDR
It is shown that, across multiple tree species, loss of xylem conductivity above 60% is associated with mortality, while carbon starvation is not universal, indicating that evidence supporting carbon starvation was not universal.
Abstract
Widespread tree mortality associated with drought has been observed on all forested continents and global change is expected to exacerbate vegetation vulnerability. Forest mortality has implications for future biosphere-atmosphere interactions of carbon, water and energy balance, and is poorly represented in dynamic vegetation models. Reducing uncertainty requires improved mortality projections founded on robust physiological processes. However, the proposed mechanisms of drought-induced mortality, including hydraulic failure and carbon starvation, are unresolved. A growing number of empirical studies have investigated these mechanisms, but data have not been consistently analysed across species and biomes using a standardized physiological framework. Here, we show that xylem hydraulic failure was ubiquitous across multiple tree taxa at drought-induced mortality. All species assessed had 60% or higher loss of xylem hydraulic conductivity, consistent with proposed theoretical and modelled survival thresholds. We found diverse responses in non-structural carbohydrate reserves at mortality, indicating that evidence supporting carbon starvation was not universal. Reduced non-structural carbohydrates were more common for gymnosperms than angiosperms, associated with xylem hydraulic vulnerability, and may have a role in reducing hydraulic function. Our finding that hydraulic failure at drought-induced mortality was persistent across species indicates that substantial improvement in vegetation modelling can be achieved using thresholds in hydraulic function.

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This is a repository copy of A multi-species synthesis of physiological mechanisms in
drought-induced tree mortality.
White Rose Research Online URL for this paper:
http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/118137/
Version: Accepted Version
Article:
Adams, H.D., Zeppel, M.J.B., Anderegg, W.R.L. et al. (59 more authors) (2017) A
multi-species synthesis of physiological mechanisms in drought-induced tree mortality.
Nature Ecology and Evolution.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0248-x
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A multi-species synthesis of physiological mechanisms in drought-induced tree mortality 1
2
Authors: Henry D. Adams
1*
, Melanie J.B. Zeppel
2,3
, William R. L. Anderegg
4
, Henrik 3
Hartmann
5
, Simon M. Landhäusser
6
, David T. Tissue
7
, Travis E. Huxman
8
, Patrick J. Hudson
9
, 4
Trenton E. Franz
10
, Craig D. Allen
11
, Leander D.L. Anderegg
12
, Greg A. Barron-Gafford
13,14
, 5
David J. Beerling
15
, David D. Breshears
16,17
, Timothy J. Brodribb
18
, Harald Bugmann
19
, Richard 6
C. Cobb
20
, Adam D. Collins
21
, L. Turin Dickman
21
, Honglang Duan
22
, Brent E. Ewers
23
, Lucía 7
Galiano
24
, David A. Galvez
6
, Núria Garcia-Forner
25
, Monica L. Gaylord
26,27
, Matthew J. 8
Germino
28
, Arthur Gessler
29
, Uwe G. Hacke
6
, Rodrigo Hakamada
30
, Andy Hector
31
, Michael W. 9
Jenkins
32
, Jeffrey M. Kane
33
, Thomas E. Kolb
26
, Darin J. Law
16
, James D. Lewis
34
, Jean-Marc 10
Limousin
35
, David M. Love
4
, Alison K. Macalady
36
, Jordi Martínez-Vilalta
37,38
, Maurizio 11
Mencuccini
39,40
, Patrick J. Mitchell
41
, Jordan D. Muss
21
, Michael J. O'Brien
42
, Anthony P. 12
O'Grady
41
, Robert E. Pangle
9
, Elizabeth A. Pinkard
41
, Frida I. Piper
43,44
, Jennifer A. Plaut
9
, 13
William T. Pockman
9
, Joe Quirk
15
, Keith Reinhardt
45
, Francesco Ripullone
46
, Michael G. 14
Ryan
47,48,49
, Anna Sala
50
, Sanna Sevanto
21
, John S. Sperry
4
, Rodrigo Vargas
51
, Michel 15
Vennetier
52
, Danielle A. Way
53,54
, Chonggang Xu
21
, Enrico A. Yepez
55
, Nate G. McDowell
56
16
17
Affiliations: 18
1
Department of Plant Biology, Ecology, and Evolution, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, 19
OK, USA 20
2
Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia 21
3
The Boden Institute, Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia 22
4
Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA 23

5
Biogeochemical Processes, Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany 24
6
Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada 25
7
Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, 26
Australia 27
8
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA. 28
9
Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA. 29
10
School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA. 30
11
U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center, Jemez Mountains Field Station, Los 31
Alamos, NM, USA 32
12
Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA 33
13
B2 EarthScience, Biosphere 2, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA 34
14
School of Geography & Development, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA 35
15
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK 36
16
School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA 37
17
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA 38
18
School of Biology, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia 39
19
Forest Ecology, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, 40
Switzerland 41
20
Department of Plant Pathology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA 42
21
Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, 43
NM, USA 44
22
Institute of Ecology and Environmental Science, Nanchang Institute of Technology, Nanchang, 45
Jiangxi, China 46

23
Department of Botany and Program in Ecology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, 47
USA
24
Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology, Swedish University of Agricultural 48
Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden 49
25
Department of Life Sciences, Centre for Functional Ecology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, 50
Portugal 51
26
School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA 52
27
Forest Health Protection, R3-Arizona Zone, US Forest Service, Flagstaff, AZ, USA 53
28
U.S. Geological Survey, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Boise, Idaho, USA 54
29
Forest Dynamics, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland 55
30
Department of Forest Sciences, University of Sao Paulo, Piracicaba, Brazil 56
31
Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK 57
32
Environmental Studies Department, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA 58
33
Department of Forestry and Wildland Resources, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA, USA 59
34
Louis Calder Center - Biological Field Station and Department of Biological Sciences, 60
Fordham University, Armonk, NY, USA 61
35
Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, CNRS, Montpellier, France 62
36
U.S. Agency for International Development, Washington, DC, USA 63
37
CREAF, Cerdanyola del Valles, Spain 64
38
Universitat Autònoma Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Valles, Spain 65
39
ICREA, ICREA-CREAF, Cerdanyola del Valles, Barcelona, Spain 66
40
School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK 67
41
CSIRO Land and Water, Hobart, TAS, Australia 68

42
Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, La 69
Cañada, Almería, Spain 70
43
Centro de Investigación en Ecosistemas de la Patagonia, Coyhaique, Chile 71
44
Instituto de Ecología y Biodiversidad, Santiago, Chile 72
45
Department of Biological Sciences, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID, USA 73
46
School of Agricultural, Forest, Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Basilicata, 74
Potenza, Italy 75
47
Natural Resources Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA 76
48
Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA 77
49
USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO, USA; 78
50
Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA 79
51
Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA 80
52
Irstea, UR RECOVER, Aix en Provence, France 81
53
Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA 82
54
Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada 83
55
Departamento de Ciencias del Agua y Medio Ambiente, Instituto Tecnologico de Sonora, 84
Ciudad Obregon, SO, Mexico 85
56
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, 99352 86
*Correspondence to: henry.adams@okstate.edu 87
88
For submission to Nature Ecology and Evolution as an Article 89
90
91

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References
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Mechanisms of plant survival and mortality during drought: why do some plants survive while others succumb to drought?

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TRY - a global database of plant traits

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