Tree mode of death and mortality risk factors across Amazon forests

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18996-3
• Publication Date: 2020-11-09T11:05:02Z
• Authors: Adriane Esquivel-...; Oliver L. Phillips; Roel J. W. Brienen; Sophie Fauset; Martin J. P. Sull...; Timothy R. Baker; Kuo-Jung Chao; Ted R. Feldpausch; Emanuel Gloor; Niro Higuchi; Jeanne Houwing-Du...; Jon Lloyd; Haiyan Liu; Yadvinder Malhi; Beatriz Marimon; Ben Hur Marimon J...; Abel Monteagudo-M...; Lourens Poorter; Marcos Silveira; Emilio Vilanova T...; Esteban Alvarez D...; Jhon del Aguila P...; Everton Almeida; Patricia Alvarez ...; Ana Andrade; Luiz E. O. C. Aragão; Alejandro Araujo-...; Eric Arets; Luzmila Arroyo; Gerardo A. Aymard C.; Michel Baisie; Christopher Baraloto; Plínio Barbosa Ca...; Jorcely Barroso; Lilian Blanc; Damien Bonal; Frans Bongers; René Boot; Foster Brown; Benoit Burban; José Luís Camargo; Wendeson Castro; Victor Chama Moscoso; Jerome Chave; James Comiskey; Fernando Cornejo ...; Antonio Lola da C...; Nallaret Davila C...; Anthony Di Fiore; Aurélie Dourdain; Terry Erwin; Gerardo Flores Ll...; Ima Célia Guimarã...; Rafael Herrera; Eurídice Honorio ...; Isau Huamantupa-C...; Eliana Jimenez-Rojas; Timothy Killeen; Susan Laurance; William Laurance; Aurora Levesley; Simon L. Lewis; Karina Liana Lisb...; Gabriela Lopez-Go...; Thomas Lovejoy; Patrick Meir; Casimiro Mendoza; Paulo Morandi; David Neill; Adriano José Nogu...; Percy Nuñez Vargas; Edmar Almeida de ...; Nadir Pallqui Cam...; Guido Pardo; Julie Peacock; Marielos Peña-Claros; Maria Cristina Pe...; Georgia Pickavance; John Pipoly; Nigel Pitman; Adriana Prieto; Thomas A. M. Pugh; Carlos Quesada; Hirma Ramirez-Angulo; Simone Matias de ...; Maxime Rejou-Machain; Zorayda Restrepo ...; Lily Rodriguez Ba...; Agustín Rudas; Rafael Salomão; Julio Serrano; Javier Silva Espejo; Natalino Silva; James Singh; Clement Stahl; Juliana Stropp; Varun Swamy; Joey Talbot; Hans ter Steege; John Terborgh; Raquel Thomas; Marisol Toledo; Armando Torres-Le...; Luis Valenzuela G...; Geertje van der H...; Peter van der Meer; Peter van der Hout; Rodolfo Vasquez M...; Simone Aparecida ...; Jeanneth Villalob...; Vincent Vos; Roderick Zagt; Pieter Zuidema; David Galbraith
• Keywords: 570; Carbon Sequestration; Science; General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology; General Physics and Astronomy; Marine Biology; Forests; 551; Models, Biological; 630; Carbon sink; Article; Trees; Growth–survival trade-off; Tree mortality; [SDV.EE.ECO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology, environment/Ecosystems; Amazonia; Risk Factors; Life Science; Biomass; Ecosystem; Proportional Hazards Models; Tropical Climate; GE; Ecology; Q; DAS; Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology; General Chemistry; risk factors, mortality, trees; Carbon Dioxide; 15. Life on land; Tropical ecology; [SDV.EE.ECO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology; Forest ecology; environment/Ecosystems; Brazil; GE Environmental Sciences; Environmental Monitoring

AbstractThe carbon sink capacity of tropical forests is substantially affected by tree mortality. However, the main drivers of tropical tree death remain largely unknown. Here we present a pan-Amazonian assessment of how and why trees die, analysing over 120,000 trees representing > 3800 species from 189 long-term RAINFOR forest plots. While tree mortality rates vary greatly Amazon-wide, on average trees are as likely to die standing as they are broken or uprooted—modes of death with different ecological consequences. Species-level growth rate is the single most important predictor of tree death in Amazonia, with faster-growing species being at higher risk. Within species, however, the slowest-growing trees are at greatest risk while the effect of tree size varies across the basin. In the driest Amazonian region species-level bioclimatic distributional patterns also predict the risk of death, suggesting that these forests are experiencing climatic conditions beyond their adaptative limits. These results provide not only a holistic pan-Amazonian picture of tree death but large-scale evidence for the overarching importance of the growth–survival trade-off in driving tropical tree mortality.