Amazonian trees functional adjustments to long term experimental drought are limited and species dependent

Negrão-Rodrigues, Vanessa, Bittencourt, Paulo ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1618-9077, Sanchez-Martinez, Pablo, Rowland, Lucy, Martius, Lion R., Meir, Patrick, Quintilhan, Manolo T., Aragão, José Roberto V., Brigatto, Victor, Oliveira, Vinicius D., Groenendijk, Peter, Soares, Arlete A., da Costa, Antônio Carlos, Junior, João Athaydes Silva, Ferreira, Leandro Valle and Teodoro, Grazielle Sales 2025. Amazonian trees functional adjustments to long term experimental drought are limited and species dependent. Flora , 152821. 10.1016/j.flora.2025.152821

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Abstract

Water availability influences the distribution and functioning of tropical forests, yet there is uncertainty about how species will respond to future drier conditions. The longest throughfall exclusion experiment (TFE) in tropical forest, eSecaFlor, which run for 22 years, showed long term soil water reduction resulted in a new eco-hydrological state with minimal drought stress due to reduced biomass, requiring the re-evaluation of species functional adjustments under this new state. In this study, we investigated whether Eastern Amazon tree species in the eSecaFlor TFE adjust their functional traits in response to long-term soil water deficit and whether these adjustments differ across species. We selected 9 species that occur in the control and TFE plots and we measured functional traits related to leaf water status (predawn and midday water potential), leaf and wood economics (specific leaf area and wood density) and xylem anatomical traits related to hydraulic efficiency (vessel diameter and number, and hydraulic specific conductivity). We found that species did not adjust most of their traits in response to the TFE. However, we found species-specific adjustments in predawn water potential and wood density, but those adjustments were not unidirectional, with some species increasing and others decreasing their trait values. Because of limited adjustments, there was no shift in tree functional space caused by the TFE. Our study highlights the need to further study what mechanisms controls species-dependent drought responses and how the Amazon forest species community may be affected given drought responses of species is not uniform.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Earth and Environmental Sciences
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0367-2530
Date of Acceptance:	5 August 2025
Last Modified:	13 Aug 2025 09:46
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/180390

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