Tropical dry forest resilience and water use efficiency

An analysis of productivity under climate change

Bibliographic Data

ID15544618
AuthorsKayla Stan (0000-0002-2159-3090, University of Alberta), Arturo Sánchez‐Azofeifa (0000-0001-7768-6600, University of Alberta, corresponding author), Sandra M Durán (0000-0003-2044-8139, University of Arizona), J Antonio Guzmán Q (0000-0002-0721-148X, University of Alberta), Michael Hesketh (University of Alberta), Kati Laakso (0000-0002-4160-3452, University of Alberta), Carlos Portillo‐Quintero (Texas Tech University), Carlos Portillo-Quintero, Cassidy Rankine, Sebastian Döetterl (0000-0002-0986-891X, ETH Zurich)
Year2021
Volume16
Issue5
Pages054027-054027
Publication date2021-04-12
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Research Letters (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326
PublisherIOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1088/1748-9326/abf6f3
OpenAlexW3155594919
LanguageEN
References cited44

Tropical dry forests (TDFs) worldwide have an environment-sensitive phenological signal, which easily marks their response to the changing climatic conditions, especially precipitation and temperature. Using TDF phenological characteristics as a proxy, this study aims to evaluate their current continental response to climate change across the Americas. Here, we show that TDFs are resilient to water stress and droughts by increasing their rain use efficiency (RUE) in drier years and recovering to average RUE in the year following the drought. Additionally, we find that TDF productivity trends over the past 18 years are spatially clustered, with sites in the northern hemisphere experiencing increased productivity, while equatorial regions have no change, and the southern hemisphere exhibiting decreased productivity. The results indicate that the TDF will be resilient under future climatic conditions, particularly if there are increasing drought conditions

Agroforestry · Biology · Climate change · Climatology · Geography · Global change · Meteorology · Northern Hemisphere · Phenology · Physical geography · Precipitation · Productivity · Proxy (statistics · Tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests · Tropics · Climate variability and models · Environmental Science · Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics · Remote Sensing in Agriculture · Ecology

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