Threshold Responses to Soil Moisture Deficit by Trees and Soil in Tropical Rain Forests: Insights from Field Experiments.

ABSTRACT: Many tropical rain forest regions are at risk of increased future drought. The net effects of drought on forest ecosystem functioning will be substantial if important ecological thresholds are passed. However, understanding and predicting these effects is challenging using observational studies alone. Field-based rainfall exclusion (canopy throughfall exclusion; TFE) experiments can offer mechanistic insight into the response to extended or severe drought and can be used to help improve model-based simulations, which are currently inadequate. Only eight TFE experiments have been reported for tropical rain forests. We examine them, synthesizing key results and focusing on two processes that have shown threshold behavior in response to drought: (1) tree mortality and (2) the efflux of carbon

SUBMITTER: Meir P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4777016 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature