Tree mode of death and mortality risk factors across Amazon forests
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Esquivel-Muelbert, Adriane | Phillips, Oliver | Brienen, Roel | Fauset, Sophie | Sullivan, Martin | Baker, Timothy | Chao, Kuo-Jung | Feldpausch, Ted | Gloor, Emanuel | Higuchi, Niro | Houwing-Duistermaat, Jeanne | Lloyd, Jon | Liu, Haiyan | Malhi, Yadvinder | Marimon, Beatriz | Marimon Junior, Ben Hur | Monteagudo-Mendoza, Abel | Poorter, Lourens | Silveira, Marcos | Torre, Emilio Vilanova | Dávila, Esteban Alvarez | del Aguila Pasquel, Jhon | Almeida, Everton | Loayza, Patricia Alvarez | Andrade, Ana | Aragão, Luiz | Araujo-Murakami, Alejandro | Arets, Eric | Arroyo, Luzmila | Aymard C., Gerardo | Baisie, Michel | Baraloto, Christopher | Camargo, Plínio Barbosa | Barroso, Jorcely | Blanc, Lilian | Bonal, Damien | Bongers, Frans | Boot, René | Brown, Foster | Burban, Benoît | Camargo, José Luís | Castro, Wendeson | Moscoso, Victor Chama | Chave, Jérôme | Comiskey, James | Valverde, Fernando Cornejo | da Costa, Antonio Lola | Cardozo, Nallaret Davila | Di Fiore, Anthony | Dourdain, Aurélie, K. | Erwin, Terry | Llampazo, Gerardo Flores | Vieira, Ima Célia Guimarães | Herrera, Rafael | Honorio Coronado, Eurídice | Huamantupa-Chuquimaco, Isau | Jimenez-Rojas, Eliana | Killeen, Timothy | Laurance, Susan | Laurance, William | Levesley, Aurora | Lewis, Simon | Ladvocat, Karina Liana Lisboa Melgaço | Lopez-Gonzalez, Gabriela | Lovejoy, Thomas | Meir, Patrick | Mendoza, Casimiro | Morandi, Paulo | Neill, David | Nogueira Lima, Adriano José | Vargas, Percy Nuñez | de Oliveira, Edmar Almeida | Camacho, Nadir Pallqui | Pardo, Guido | Peacock, Julie | Peña-Claros, Marielos | Peñuela-Mora, Maria Cristina | Pickavance, Georgia | Pipoly, John | Pitman, Nigel | Prieto, Adriana | Pugh, Thomas | Quesada, Carlos | Ramirez-Angulo, Hirma | de Almeida Reis, Simone Matias | Réjou-Méchain, M. | Correa, Zorayda Restrepo | Bayona, Lily Rodriguez | Rudas, Agustín | Salomão, Rafael | Serrano, Julio | Espejo, Javier Silva | Silva, Natalino | Singh, James | Stahl, Clement | Stropp, Juliana | Swamy, Varun | Talbot, Joey | ter Steege, Hans | Terborgh, John | Thomas, Raquel | Toledo, Marisol | Torres-Lezama, Armando | Gamarra, Luis Valenzuela | van Der Heijden, Geertje | van Der Meer, Peter | van Der Hout, Peter | Martinez, Rodolfo Vasquez | Vieira, Simone Aparecida | Cayo, Jeanneth Villalobos | Vos, Vincent | Zagt, Roderick | Zuidema, Pieter | Galbraith, David
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CCSD ; Nature Publishing Group -
Corrections available at : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20537-x. International audience.
The carbon sink capacity of tropical forests is substantially affected by tree mortality. However, the main drivers of tropical tree death remain largely unknown. Here we present a pan-Amazonian assessment of how and why trees die, analysing over 120,000 trees representing > 3800 species from 189 long-term RAINFOR forest plots. While tree mortality rates vary greatly Amazon-wide, on average trees are as likely to die standing as they are broken or uprooted—modes of death with different ecological consequences. Species-level growth rate is the single most important predictor of tree death in Amazonia, with faster-growing species being at higher risk. Within species, however, the slowest-growing trees are at greatest risk while the effect of tree size varies across the basin. In the driest Amazonian region species-level bioclimatic distributional patterns also predict the risk of death, suggesting that these forests are experiencing climatic conditions beyond their adaptative limits. These results provide not only a holistic pan-Amazonian picture of tree death but large-scale evidence for the overarching importance of the growth–survival trade-off in driving tropical tree mortality.
