Temperature response surfaces for mortality risk of tree species with future drought

Bibliographic Data

ID15547993
AuthorsHenry D Adams (0000-0001-9630-4305, Oklahoma State University, corresponding author), Greg A Barron‐gafford (0000-0003-1333-3843, University of Arizona), Greg A Barron-Gafford, R L Minor (0000-0003-1253-6219, University of Arizona), Alfonso A Gardea (0000-0002-6842-2678, Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo), Lisa Patrick Bentley (0000-0002-6874-2874, Sonoma State University), Darin J Law (0000-0002-0903-4210, University of Arizona), David D Breshears (0000-0001-6601-0058, University of Arizona), Nate G McDowell (0000-0002-2178-2254, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory), Travis E Huxman (0000-0002-0801-3442, University of California, Irvine)
Year2017
Volume12
Issue11
Pages115014-115014
Publication date2017-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Research Letters (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326
PublisherIOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1088/1748-9326/aa93be
OpenAlexW2770842560
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited61

Widespread, high levels of tree mortality, termed forest die-off, associated with drought and rising temperatures, are disrupting forests worldwide. Drought will likely become more frequent with climate change, but even without more frequent drought, higher temperatures can exacerbate tree water stress. The temperature sensitivity of drought-induced mortality of tree species has been evaluated experimentally for only single-step changes in temperature (ambient compared to ambient + increase) rather than as a response surface (multiple levels of temperature increase), which constrains our ability to relate changes in the driver with the biological response. Here we show that time-to-mortality during drought for seedlings of two western United States tree species, Pinus edulis (Engelm.) and Pinus ponderosa (Douglas ex C. Lawson), declined in continuous proportion with increasing temperature spanning a 7.7 C increase. Although P. edulis outlived P. ponderosa at all temperatures, both species had similar relative declines in time-to-mortality as temperature increased (5.2% per C for P. edulis; 5.8% per C for P. ponderosa). When combined with the non-linear frequency distribution of drought duration-many more short droughts than long droughts-these findings point to a progressive increase in mortality events with global change due to warming alone and independent of additional changes in future drought frequency distributions. As such, dire future forest recruitment patterns are projected assuming the calculated 7-9 seedling mortality events per species by 2100 under business-as-usual warming occur, congruent with additional vulnerability predicted for adult trees from stressors like pathogens and pests. Our progressive projection for increased mortality events was driven primarily by the non-linear shape of the drought duration frequency distribution, a common climate feature of drought-affected regions. These results illustrate profound benefits for reducing emissions of carbon to the atmosphere from anthropogenic sources and slowing warming as rapidly as possible to maximize forest persistence

Agronomy · Biology · Climate change · Drought stress · Global warming · Seedling · Vulnerability (computing · Environmental Science · Forest ecology and management · Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics · Tree-ring climate responses · Ecology

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