Thinner bark increases sensitivity of wetter Amazonian tropical forests to fire
Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: Understory fires represent an accelerating threat to Amazonian tropical forests and can, during drought, affect larger areas than deforestation itself. These fires kill trees at rates varying from < 10 to c. 90% depending on fire intensity, forest disturbance history and tree functional traits. Here, we examine variation in bark thickness across the Amazon. Bark can protect trees from fires, but it is often assumed to be consistently thin across tropical forests. Here, we show that investment in bark varies, with thicker bark in dry forests and thinner in wetter forests. We also show that thinner bark translated into higher fire‐driven tree mortality in wetter forests, with between 0.67 and 5.86 gigatonnes CO2 lost in Amazon understory fires between 2001 and 2010. Trait‐enabled global vegetation models that explicitly include variation in bark thickness are likely to improve the predictions of fire effects on carbon cycling in tropical forests.
Source: Ecology Letters
DOI: 10.1111/ele.13409
Institutions: Yale University, Woodwell Climate Research Center, University of California, Irvine, Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia, Universidade Federal de Lavras, Lancaster University, Goddard Space Flight Center, University of New England, University of Oxford, Gabriel René Moreno Autonomous University, Museo de Historia Natural Noel Kempff Mercado, Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana
Language: English
Topic: Fire effects on ecosystems
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDGs: Climate action, Life on land
Open Access status: green
Awards: Longer-term responses of Amazonian vegetation to fire, G1814165230, MSB-FRA: Scaling fire size from local process to continental pattern, Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in degraded and recovering Amazonian and Atlantic forests, G2227459359, Human-modified Tropical Forest Programme Management, MSB-ECA: Tropical biomes: how agriculture intensification and climate may alter fire regimes, The multi-year impacts of the 2015/2016 El Nino on the carbon cycle of tropical forests
OpenAlex ID: W2981419578