Journal ArticleDOI
The interdependence of mechanisms underlying climate-driven vegetation mortality
Nate G. McDowell,David J. Beerling,David D. Breshears,Rosie A. Fisher,Kenneth F. Raffa,Mark Stitt +5 more
TLDR
By integrating new evidence from a wide range of fields, it is concluded that hydraulic function and carbohydrate and defense metabolism have numerous potential failure points, and that these processes are strongly interdependent, both with each other and with destructive pathogen and insect populations.Abstract:
Climate-driven vegetation mortality is occurring globally and is predicted to increase in the near future. The expected climate feedbacks of regional-scale mortality events have intensified the need to improve the simple mortality algorithms used for future predictions, but uncertainty regarding mortality processes precludes mechanistic modeling. By integrating new evidence from a wide range of fields, we conclude that hydraulic function and carbohydrate and defense metabolism have numerous potential failure points, and that these processes are strongly interdependent, both with each other and with destructive pathogen and insect populations. Crucially, most of these mechanisms and their interdependencies are likely to become amplified under a warmer, drier climate. Here, we outline the observations and experiments needed to test this interdependence and to improve simulations of this emergent global phenomenon.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Global convergence in the vulnerability of forests to drought
Brendan Choat,Steven Jansen,Timothy J. Brodribb,Hervé Cochard,Hervé Cochard,Sylvain Delzon,Radika Bhaskar,Sandra Janet Bucci,Taylor S. Feild,Sean M. Gleason,Uwe G. Hacke,Anna L. Jacobsen,Frederic Lens,Hafiz Maherali,Jordi Martínez-Vilalta,Stefan Mayr,Maurizio Mencuccini,Patrick J. Mitchell,Andrea Nardini,Jarmila Pittermann,R. Brandon Pratt,John S. Sperry,Mark Westoby,Ian J. Wright,Amy E. Zanne,Amy E. Zanne +25 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw together published and unpublished data on the vulnerability of the transport system to drought-induced embolism for a large number of woody species, with a view to examining the likely consequences of climate change for forest biomes.
Journal ArticleDOI
On underestimation of global vulnerability to tree mortality and forest die‐off from hotter drought in the Anthropocene
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify ten contrasting perspectives that shape the vulnerability debate but have not been discussed collectively and present a set of global vulnerability drivers that are known with high confidence: (1) droughts eventually occur everywhere; (2) warming produces hotter Droughts; (3) atmospheric moisture demand increases nonlinearly with temperature during drought; (4) mortality can occur faster in hotter Drought, consistent with fundamental physiology; (5) shorter Drought can become lethal under warming, increasing the frequency of lethal Drought; and (6) mortality happens rapidly
Drought-Induced Reduction in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 2000 Through 2009
Maosheng Zhao,Steven W. Running +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors suggest a reduction in the global NPP of 0.55 petagrams of carbon, which would not only weaken the terrestrial carbon sink, but would also intensify future competition between food demand and biofuel production.
Journal ArticleDOI
Temperature as a potent driver of regional forest drought stress and tree mortality
A. Park Williams,Craig D. Allen,Alison K. Macalady,Daniel Griffin,Connie A. Woodhouse,David M. Meko,Thomas W. Swetnam,Sara A. Rauscher,Richard Seager,Henri D. Grissino-Mayer,Jeffrey S. Dean,Edward R. Cook,C. Gangodagamage,Michael Cai,Nate G. McDowell +14 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors derived a forest drought-stress index (FDSI) for the southwestern United States using a comprehensive tree-ring data set representing AD 1000-2007, which is approximately equally influenced by the warm-season vapour-pressure deficit (largely controlled by temperature) and cold-season precipitation, together explaining 82% of the FDSI variability.
Journal ArticleDOI
Triggers of tree mortality under drought
Brendan Choat,Timothy J. Brodribb,Craig R. Brodersen,Remko A. Duursma,Rosana López,Rosana López,Belinda E. Medlyn +6 more
TL;DR: This work focuses on the current understanding of tree hydraulic performance under drought, the identification of physiological thresholds that precipitate mortality and the mechanisms of recovery after drought, and the potential application of hydraulic thresholds to process-based models that predict mortality.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
A global overview of drought and heat-induced tree mortality reveals emerging climate change risks for forests
Craig D. Allen,Alison K. Macalady,Haroun Chenchouni,Dominique Bachelet,Nate G. McDowell,Michel Vennetier,Thomas Kitzberger,Andreas Rigling,David D. Breshears,Edward H. Hogg,Patrick Gonzalez,Rod Fensham,Zhen Zhang,Jorge Castro,N.A. Demidova,Jong Hwan Lim,Gillian Allard,Steven W. Running,Akkin Semerci,Neil S. Cobb +19 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the first global assessment of recent tree mortality attributed to drought and heat stress and identify key information gaps and scientific uncertainties that currently hinder our ability to predict tree mortality in response to climate change and emphasizes the need for a globally coordinated observation system.
Journal ArticleDOI
Forests and Climate Change: Forcings, Feedbacks, and the Climate Benefits of Forests
TL;DR: Interdisciplinary science that integrates knowledge of the many interacting climate services of forests with the impacts of global change is necessary to identify and understand as yet unexplored feedbacks in the Earth system and the potential of forests to mitigate climate change.
Journal ArticleDOI
The dilemma of plants: To grow or defend.
TL;DR: A conceptual model of the evolution of plant defense is concluded, in which plant physioligical trade-offs interact with the abiotic environment, competition and herbivory.
Journal ArticleDOI
Early-warning signals for critical transitions
Marten Scheffer,Jordi Bascompte,William A. Brock,Victor Brovkin,Stephen R. Carpenter,Vasilis Dakos,Hermann Held,Egbert H. van Nes,Max Rietkerk,George Sugihara +9 more
TL;DR: Work in different scientific fields is now suggesting the existence of generic early-warning signals that may indicate for a wide class of systems if a critical threshold is approaching.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mechanisms of plant survival and mortality during drought: why do some plants survive while others succumb to drought?
Nate G. McDowell,William T. Pockman,Craig D. Allen,David D. Breshears,Neil S. Cobb,Thomas Kolb,Jennifer A. Plaut,John S. Sperry,Adam G. West,Adam G. West,David G. Williams,Enrico A. Yepez +11 more
TL;DR: A hydraulically based theory considering carbon balance and insect resistance that allowed development and examination of hypotheses regarding survival and mortality was developed, and incorporating this hydraulic framework may be effective for modeling plant survival andortality under future climate conditions.
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Global convergence in the vulnerability of forests to drought
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