Hydraulic prediction of drought-induced plant dieback and top-kill depends on leaf habit and growth form

Ya-Jun Chen; Brendan Choat; Frank Sterck; Phisamai Maenpuen; Masatoshi Katabuchi; Shu-Bin Zhang; Kyle W Tomlinson; Rafael S Oliveira; Yong-Jiang Zhang; Jing-Xian Shen; Kun-Fang Cao; Steven Jansen

doi:10.1111/ele.13856

Hydraulic prediction of drought-induced plant dieback and top-kill depends on leaf habit and growth form

Ecol Lett. 2021 Nov;24(11):2350-2363. doi: 10.1111/ele.13856. Epub 2021 Aug 18.

Authors

Ya-Jun Chen^{1

2

3

4}, Brendan Choat⁵, Frank Sterck⁴, Phisamai Maenpuen^{1

6}, Masatoshi Katabuchi¹, Shu-Bin Zhang^{1

3}, Kyle W Tomlinson⁷, Rafael S Oliveira⁸, Yong-Jiang Zhang⁹, Jing-Xian Shen^{1

10}, Kun-Fang Cao¹¹, Steven Jansen¹²

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla, Yunnan, China.
² Center of Plant Ecology, Core Botanical Gardens, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yunnan, China.
³ Yuanjiang Savanna Ecosystem Research Station, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yuanjiang, Yunnan, China.
⁴ Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands.
⁵ Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Richmond, New South Wales, Australia.
⁶ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁷ Center for Integrative Conservation, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla, Yunnan, China.
⁸ Department of Plant Biology, Institute of Biology, CP6109, University of Campinas - UNICAMP, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil.
⁹ School of Biology and Ecology, University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA.
¹⁰ Institute of Ecology and Geobotany, School of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Yunnan University, Kunming, Yunnan, China.
¹¹ State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Agro-bioresources, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Conservation, College of Forestry, Guangxi University, Nanning, China.
¹² Institute of Systematic Botany and Ecology, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany.

PMID: 34409716
DOI: 10.1111/ele.13856

Abstract

Hydraulic failure caused by severe drought contributes to aboveground dieback and whole-plant death. The extent to which dieback or whole-plant death can be predicted by plant hydraulic traits has rarely been tested among species with different leaf habits and/or growth forms. We investigated 19 hydraulic traits in 40 woody species in a tropical savanna and their potential correlations with drought response during an extreme drought event during the El Niño-Southern Oscillation in 2015. Plant hydraulic trait variation was partitioned substantially by leaf habit but not growth form along a trade-off axis between traits that support drought tolerance versus avoidance. Semi-deciduous species and shrubs had the highest branch dieback and top-kill (complete aboveground death) among the leaf habits or growth forms. Dieback and top-kill were well explained by combining hydraulic traits with leaf habit and growth form, suggesting integrating life history traits with hydraulic traits will yield better predictions.

Keywords: dieback and mortality; drought tolerance; embolism; hydraulic failure; hydraulic safety margin; leaf turgor loss point; liana; top-kill; tropical savanna.

Publication types

Letter

MeSH terms

Droughts*
Habits
Plant Leaves
Trees
Water*

Substances

Water

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances

Grants and funding