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Larger trees suffer most during drought in forests worldwide

Nature Plants volume 1, Article number: 15139 (2015) Cite this article

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Abstract

The frequency of severe droughts is increasing in many regions around the world as a result of climate change1–3. Droughts alter the structure and function of forests4,5. Site- and region-specific studies suggest that large trees, which play keystone roles in forests6 and can be disproportionately important to ecosystem carbon storage7 and hydrology8, exhibit greater sensitivity to drought than small trees4,5,9,10. Here, we synthesize data on tree growth and mortality collected during 40 drought events in forests worldwide to see whether this size-dependent sensitivity to drought holds more widely. We find that droughts consistently had a more detrimental impact on the growth and mortality rates of larger trees. Moreover, drought-related mortality increased with tree size in 65% of the droughts examined, especially when community-wide mortality was high or when bark beetles were present. The more pronounced drought sensitivity of larger trees could be underpinned by greater inherent vulnerability to hydraulic stress11–14, the higher radiation and evaporative demand experienced by exposed crowns4,15, and the tendency for bark beetles to preferentially attack larger trees16. We suggest that future droughts will have a more detrimental impact on the growth and mortality of larger trees, potentially exacerbating feedbacks to climate change.

Climate change has been linked to water deficits in many parts of the world, and future climate projections suggest that droughts are likely to increase in severity because of changes in the timing and magnitude of precipitation and rising temperature1,2,14,17. Across a wide range of biomes, drought leads to changes in forest composition, structure, productivity and climate interactions5,18,19. Drought has many important consequences for forest communities, as species composition and dominance are shaped by water availability and can change rapidly in response to drought19,20. Drought-induced forest decline results in climate feedbacks including reduced CO2 uptake, reduced carbon stocks, increased albedo and decreased evapotranspiration21. The impact of drought on forest structure and function depends on which trees are most adversely affected; greater mortality of small trees may modify future forest succession whereas mortality of large trees causes disproportionate losses of carbon and ecosystem function5–7. It has not been clear whether large or small trees would suffer more under drought stress. Several studies have documented a greater impact of drought on large trees at a single site4,9,10, and a synthesis of data from the humid lowland tropics revealed a tendency for greater drought-related mortality increases in large trees5, but these patterns have never been systematically reviewed for forests worldwide.

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Figure 1: Global distribution of instances of drought impacts on forests reviewed in this study.
Figure 2: Drought responses of diameter growth rate and mortality rate as a function of tree size.
Figure 3: Size dependence of drought-related mortality and its relationship to community-wide mortality.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to all authors of the original studies included in this analysis; to J.A. Lutz, S.M. McMahon, A.D. Miller, A.J. Tepley, L. Poorter and A. Macalady for helpful feedback, and to J. Park, E. Bowman, M. Wang and J. Pearce for help with literature review and data compilation. This research was funded by a Smithsonian Competitive Grants Program for Science grant to KAT. NGM was supported by the Department of Energy, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, including through the Next Generation Ecosystem Experiment (NGEE) Tropics project and through Los Alamos National Lab's Laboratory Directed Research and Development. C.D.A. was supported by the U.S. Geological Survey's Ecosystems and Climate & Land Use Change mission areas, through the USGS Western Mountain Initiative project. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Conservation Ecology Center, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, Front Royal, 22630, Virginia, USA

    Amy C. Bennett & Kristina J. Anderson-Teixeira

  2. Biology Department, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, 87106, New Mexico, USA

    Amy C. Bennett

  3. Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, 87545, New Mexico, USA

    Nathan G. McDowell

  4. U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center, Jemez Mountain Field Station, Los Alamos, 87544, New Mexico, USA

    Craig D. Allen

  5. Center for Tropical Forest Science-Forest Global Earth Observatory, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama, Republic of Panama

    Kristina J. Anderson-Teixeira

Authors
  1. Amy C. Bennett
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  2. Nathan G. McDowell
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  4. Kristina J. Anderson-Teixeira
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Contributions

K.A.T., A.C.B. and N.G.M. conceived and designed the analysis, A.C.B., C.D.A. and K.A.T. compiled data; K.A.T. and A.C.B. analysed data; A.C.B., K.A.T., N.G.M. and C.D.A wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kristina J. Anderson-Teixeira.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Bennett, A., McDowell, N., Allen, C. et al. Larger trees suffer most during drought in forests worldwide. Nature Plants 1, 15139 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2015.139

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