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  • Brief Communications Arising
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Dry-season greening of Amazon forests

Nature volume 531, pages E4–E5 (2016)Cite this article

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ARISING FROM D. C. Morton et al. Nature 506, 221–224 (2014); 10.1038/nature13006

Evidence from ecological studies1,2, eddy flux towers3,4,5, and satellites3,6 shows that many tropical forests ‘green up’ during higher sunlight annual dry seasons, suggesting they are more limited by light than water. Morton et al.7 reported that satellite-observed dry-season green up in Amazon forests is an artefact of seasonal variations in sun-sensor geometry. However, here we argue that even after artefact correction, data from Morton et al. show statistically significant increases in canopy greenness during the dry season. Integrating corrected satellite with ground observations indicates that dry-season forest greening is prevalent in Amazonia, probably reflecting large-scale seasonal upregulation of photosynthesis by canopy leaf dynamics. There is a reply to this Brief Communication Arising by Morton, D. C. et al. Nature 531, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature16458 (2016).

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Figure 1: Distribution of uncorrected and corrected ΔEVI.
Figure 2: Seasonality of vegetation metrics.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721, Arizona, USA

    Scott R. Saleska & Jin Wu

  2. Environmental and Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, 94305, California, USA

    Kaiyu Guan

  3. Embrapa Amazonia Oriental, Belem, Brazil

    Alessandro C. Araujo

  4. Plant Functional Biology and Climate Change Cluster, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, 2007, New South Wales, Australia

    Alfredo Huete & Natalia Restrepo-Coupe

  5. National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA), São José dos Campos, Brazil

    Antonio D. Nobre

Authors
  1. Scott R. Saleska
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  2. Jin Wu
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  3. Kaiyu Guan
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  4. Alessandro C. Araujo
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  5. Alfredo Huete
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  6. Antonio D. Nobre
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  7. Natalia Restrepo-Coupe
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Contributions

S.R.S. designed the statistical analysis and wrote the initial draft of the paper; J.W. implemented the statistical analysis; K.G. provided MAIAC EVI data and analysis; A.C.A. contributed eddy flux data; A.H. contributed analysed EVI data; A.D.N. contributed eddy flux data and insights; and N.R.C. integrated the multi-tower datasets. All authors contributed to writing the final version.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Scott R. Saleska.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Saleska, S., Wu, J., Guan, K. et al. Dry-season greening of Amazon forests. Nature 531, E4–E5 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature16457

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