Linking seedling wood anatomical trade-offs with drought and seedling growth and survival in tropical dry forests.

ABSTRACT: Wood anatomy plays a key role in plants' ability to persist under drought and should therefore predict demography. Plants balance their resource allocation among wood cell types responsible for different functions. However, it remains unclear how these anatomical trade-offs vary with water availability, and the extent to which they influence demographic rates. We investigated how wood anatomical trade-offs were related to drought and demographic rates, for seedling communities in four tropical dry forests differing in their aridity indexes (AIs). We measured wood density, as well as vessel, fiber and parenchyma traits of 65 species, and we monitored growth and survival for a 1-yr period. Two axes defined wood anatomical structure: a fiber-parenchyma axis and a vessel-wood density axis. See

SUBMITTER: Gonzalez-Melo A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11617663 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature