Low growth resilience to drought is related to future mortality risk in trees

Lucía DeSoto (), Maxime Cailleret, Frank Sterck, Steven Jansen, Koen Kramer, Elisabeth M. R. Robert, Tuomas Aakala, Mariano M. Amoroso, Christof Bigler, J. Julio Camarero, Katarina Čufar, Guillermo Gea-Izquierdo, Sten Gillner, Laurel J. Haavik, Ana-Maria Hereş, Jeffrey M. Kane, Vyacheslav I. Kharuk, Thomas Kitzberger, Tamir Klein, Tom Levanič, Juan C. Linares, Harri Mäkinen, Walter Oberhuber, Andreas Papadopoulos, Brigitte Rohner, Gabriel Sangüesa-Barreda, Dejan B. Stojanovic, Maria Laura Suárez, Ricardo Villalba and Jordi Martínez-Vilalta
Additional contact information
Lucía DeSoto: Spanish National Research Council (EEZA-CSIC)
Maxime Cailleret: Université Aix-Marseille, UMR Recover
Frank Sterck: Wageningen University
Steven Jansen: Ulm University
Koen Kramer: Wageningen University
Elisabeth M. R. Robert: CREAF
Tuomas Aakala: University of Helsinki
Mariano M. Amoroso: Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)
Christof Bigler: ETH Zürich
J. Julio Camarero: Spanish National Research Council (IPE-CSIC)
Katarina Čufar: University of Ljubljana
Guillermo Gea-Izquierdo: Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA)
Sten Gillner: TU Dresden
Laurel J. Haavik: USDA Forest Service
Ana-Maria Hereş: Transilvania University of Brasov
Jeffrey M. Kane: Humboldt State University
Vyacheslav I. Kharuk: Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS)
Thomas Kitzberger: Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)
Tamir Klein: Weizmann Institute of Science
Tom Levanič: Slovenian Forestry Institute
Juan C. Linares: Pablo de Olavide University
Harri Mäkinen: Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke)
Walter Oberhuber: University of Innsbruck
Andreas Papadopoulos: Agricultural University of Athens
Brigitte Rohner: ETH Zürich
Gabriel Sangüesa-Barreda: University of Valladolid
Dejan B. Stojanovic: University of Novi Sad
Maria Laura Suárez: CONICET - INTA, EEA Bariloche
Ricardo Villalba: Instituto Argentino de Nivología Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales (IANIGLA-CONICET)
Jordi Martínez-Vilalta: CREAF

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Severe droughts have the potential to reduce forest productivity and trigger tree mortality. Most trees face several drought events during their life and therefore resilience to dry conditions may be crucial to long-term survival. We assessed how growth resilience to severe droughts, including its components resistance and recovery, is related to the ability to survive future droughts by using a tree-ring database of surviving and now-dead trees from 118 sites (22 species, >3,500 trees). We found that, across the variety of regions and species sampled, trees that died during water shortages were less resilient to previous non-lethal droughts, relative to coexisting surviving trees of the same species. In angiosperms, drought-related mortality risk is associated with lower resistance (low capacity to reduce impact of the initial drought), while it is related to reduced recovery (low capacity to attain pre-drought growth rates) in gymnosperms. The different resilience strategies in these two taxonomic groups open new avenues to improve our understanding and prediction of drought-induced mortality.

Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-14300-5

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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14300-5

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