Forest and woodland replacement patterns following drought-related mortality

Autor: Juan Carlos Linares, Yamila Sasal, Abdallah Bentouati, Miranda D. Redmond, C. John Burk, Joseph L. Ganey, Thomas T. Veblen, Francesco Ripullone, Christof Bigler, Lucía Galiano, Suzanne B. Marchetti, William R. L. Anderegg, Caroline Vincke, Ermias Aynekulu, J. Julio Camarero, Jeffrey M. Kane, Maria Laura Suarez, Andreas Rigling, Anna L. Jacobsen, Tuomas Aakala, Michael Michaelian, Enric Batllori, Francisco Lloret, R. B. Pratt, Roderick Fensham, Gabriel Sangüesa-Barreda, M. Lisa Floyd, Thomas Kitzberger, Albert Vilà-Cabrera, Rafael M. Navarro-Cerrillo, Sandra Saura-Mas, Devin P. Bendixsen, Ben J. Zeeman, George Matusick, Michele Colangelo, Patrick Gonzalez, Jonathan D. Coop
Přispěvatelé: UCL - SST/ELI/ELIE - Environmental Sciences, Department of Forest Sciences, Boreal forest dynamics and biodiversity research group, Forest Ecology and Management
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
DYNAMICS
0106 biological sciences
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Biome
ved/biology.organism_classification_rank.species
Ecological succession
Woodland
Forests
FIRE
01 natural sciences
Shrub
Forest dynamics
Trees
Ecosystem services
Drought-induced mortality
global tree mortality
Global tree mortality
RESEARCH FRONTIERS
Climate change
MAXIMUM-LIKELIHOOD
4112 Forestry
Multidisciplinary
Ecology
food and beverages
Biodiversity
Biological Sciences
Droughts
Geography
Forest resilience
forest dynamics
Climate Change
drought-unduced motality
010603 evolutionary biology
INDUCED TREE
Species Specificity
REGRESSION
MANAGEMENT
Dominance (ecology)
VEGETATION SHIFTS
Ecosystem
forest resilience
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
ved/biology
RESILIENCE
15. Life on land
13. Climate action
drought-induced mortality
Zdroj: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, p. 202002314 (2020)
Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
ISSN: 1091-6490
0027-8424
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2002314117
Popis: Significance Forests are experiencing growing risks of drought-induced mortality in a warming world. Yet, ecosystem dynamics following drought mortality remain unknown, representing a major limitation to our understanding of the ecological consequences of climate change. We provide an emerging picture of postdrought ecological trajectories based on field indicators of forest dynamics. Replacement patterns following mortality indicate limited short-term persistence of predrought dominant tree species, highlighting the potential for major ecosystem reorganization in the coming decades. The great variability of the observed dynamics within and among species reinforces the primary influence of drought characteristics and ecosystem legacies, modulated by land use, management, and past disturbances, on ongoing drought-related species turnover and their potential implications for future forest biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Forest vulnerability to drought is expected to increase under anthropogenic climate change, and drought-induced mortality and community dynamics following drought have major ecological and societal impacts. Here, we show that tree mortality concomitant with drought has led to short-term (mean 5 y, range 1 to 23 y after mortality) vegetation-type conversion in multiple biomes across the world (131 sites). Self-replacement of the dominant tree species was only prevalent in 21% of the examined cases and forests and woodlands shifted to nonwoody vegetation in 10% of them. The ultimate temporal persistence of such changes remains unknown but, given the key role of biological legacies in long-term ecological succession, this emerging picture of postdrought ecological trajectories highlights the potential for major ecosystem reorganization in the coming decades. Community changes were less pronounced under wetter postmortality conditions. Replacement was also influenced by management intensity, and postdrought shrub dominance was higher when pathogens acted as codrivers of tree mortality. Early change in community composition indicates that forests dominated by mesic species generally shifted toward more xeric communities, with replacing tree and shrub species exhibiting drier bioclimatic optima and distribution ranges. However, shifts toward more mesic communities also occurred and multiple pathways of forest replacement were observed for some species. Drought characteristics, species-specific environmental preferences, plant traits, and ecosystem legacies govern postdrought species turnover and subsequent ecological trajectories, with potential far-reaching implications for forest biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Databáze: OpenAIRE