Shifts in functional traits elevate risk of fire-driven tree dieback in tropical savanna and forest biomes

Global Change Biology

Volumn 22, Issue 3, 2016, Pages 1235-1243

  Pellegrini, Adam F A ^a   Franco, Augusto C ^b   Hoffmann, William A ^c  

^a PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF BRASILIA   (Brazil)

^c NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Bark thickness; Carbon; Cerrado; Fire; Functional traits; Savanna; Tree dieback; Tropical forest; Woody encroachment

Indexed keywords

BARK; BIOME; CARBON SEQUESTRATION; CERRADO; CLIMATE EFFECT; DIEBACK; ECOSYSTEM RESPONSE; FOREST FIRE; RISK ASSESSMENT; SAVANNA; TROPICAL FOREST;

BRAZIL;

BARK; BRAZIL; CARBON CYCLE; FIRE; FOREST; GRASSLAND; GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT AND AGING; PLANT STEM; TREE; TROPIC CLIMATE;

BRAZIL; CARBON CYCLE; FIRES; FORESTS; GRASSLAND; PLANT BARK; PLANT STEMS; TREES; TROPICAL CLIMATE;

EID: 84959555928     PISSN: 13541013     EISSN: 13652486     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/gcb.13110     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. Alencar AA, Brando PM, Asner GP, Putz FE (2015) Landscape fragmentation, severe drought and the new Amazon forest fire regime. Ecological Applications, 25, 1493-1505.
2. Barlow J, Peres CA (2008) Fire-mediated dieback and compositional cascade in an Amazonian forest. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 363, 1787-1794.
3. Bond WJ, Midgley GF (2012) Carbon dioxide and the uneasy interactions of trees and savannah grasses. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367, 601-612.
4. Brando PM, Nepstad DC, Balch JK, Bolker B, Christman MC, Coe M, Putz FE (2012) Fire-induced tree mortality in a neotropical forest: the roles of bark traits, tree size, wood density and fire behavior. Global Change Biology, 18, 630-641.
5. Brando PM, Balch JK, Nepstad DC et al. (2014) Abrupt increases in Amazonian tree mortality due to drought-fire interactions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111, 6347-6352.
6. Buitenwerf R, Bond W, Stevens N, Trollope W (2012) Increased tree densities in South African savannas:> 50 years of data suggests CO2 as a driver. Global Change Biology, 18, 675-684.
7. Cerrados E (2006) Folha SA-23-Z-A: cobertura vegetal dos biomas brasileiros. Available at: http://mapas.mma.gov.br/geodados/brasil/vegetacao/vegetacao2002/ (accessed March 2015).
8. Cochrane MA, Alencar A, Schulze MD, Souza CM Jr, Nepstad DC, Lefebvre P, Davidson EA (1999) Positive feedbacks in the fire dynamic of closed canopy tropical forests. Science, 284, 1832-1835.
9. Coutinho LM (1990) Fire in the Ecology of the Brazilian Cerrado. In: Fire in the Tropical Biota (ed. Goldammer J), pp. 82-105. Springer, Berlin.
10. Dantas VL, Batalha MA, Pausas JG (2013) Fire drives functional thresholds on the savanna-forest transition. Ecology, 94, 2454-2463.
11. Haase R, Haase P (1995) Above-ground biomass estimates for invasive trees and shrubs in the Pantanal of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Forest Ecology and Management, 73, 29-35.
12. Hammond DS, Ter Steege H (1998) Propensity for Fire in Guianan Rainforests. Conservation Biology, 12, 944-947.
13. Hansen MC, Potapov PV, Moore R et al. (2013) High-resolution global maps of 21st-century forest cover change. Science, 342, 850-853.
14. Higgins SI, Scheiter S (2012) Atmospheric CO2 forces abrupt vegetation shifts locally, but not globally. Nature, 488, 209-212.
15. Hijmans RJ, Cameron SE, Parra JL, Jones PG, Jarvis A (2005) Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. International Journal of Climatology, 25, 1965-1978.
16. Hoffmann WA, Adasme R, Haridasan M et al. (2009) Tree topkill, not mortality, governs the dynamics of savanna-forest boundaries under frequent fire in central Brazil. Ecology, 90, 1326-1337.
17. Hoffmann WA, Geiger EL, Gotsch SG et al. (2012) Ecological thresholds at the savanna-forest boundary: how plant traits, resources and fire govern the distribution of tropical biomes. Ecology Letters, 15, 759-768.
18. Kauffman JB, Cummings DL, Ward D (1994) Relationships of fire, biomass and nutrient dynamics along a vegetation gradient in the Brazilian Cerrado. Journal of Ecology, 82, 519-531.
19. Liu YY, Van Dijk AIJM, De Jeu RAM, Canadell JG, Mccabe MF, Evans JP, Wang G (2015) Recent reversal in loss of global terrestrial biomass. Nature Climate Change, 5, 470-474.
20. Moncrieff GR, Scheiter S, Bond WJ, Higgins SI (2014) Increasing atmospheric CO2 overrides the historical legacy of multiple stable biome states in Africa. New Phytologist, 201, 908-915.
21. Morton DC, Le Page Y, Defries R, Collatz GJ, Hurtt GC (2013) Understorey fire frequency and the fate of burned forests in southern Amazonia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 368, 20120163.
22. Oliveira-Filho AT, Fontes MAL (2000) Patterns of floristic differentiation among atlantic forests in southeastern Brazil and the influence of climate1. Biotropica, 32, 793-810.
23. Oliveira-Filho AD, Ratter J (1995) A study of the origin of central Brazilian forests by the analysis of plant species distribution patterns. Edinburgh Journal of Botany, 52, 141-194.
24. Pellegrini AFA, Hoffmann WA, Franco AC (2014) Carbon accumulation and nitrogen pool recovery during transitions from savanna to forest in central Brazil. Ecology, 95, 342-352.
25. Pinard MA, Putz FE, Licona JC (1999) Tree mortality and vine proliferation following a wildfire in a subhumid tropical forest in eastern Bolivia. Forest Ecology and Management, 116, 247-252.
26. Poulter B, Frank D, Ciais P et al. (2014) Contribution of semi-arid ecosystems to interannual variability of the global carbon cycle. Nature, 509, 600-603.
27. Rossatto DR, Hoffmann WA, Franco AC (2009) Differences in growth patterns between co-occurring forest and savanna trees affect the forest-savanna boundary. Functional Ecology, 23, 689-698.
28. Scheiter S, Higgins SI (2009) Impacts of climate change on the vegetation of Africa: an adaptive dynamic vegetation modelling approach. Global Change Biology, 15, 2224-2246.
29. Scolforo J (2008a) Inventário florestal de Minas Gerais: cerrado: florística, estrutura, diversidade, similaridade, distribuição diamética e de altura, volumetria, tendências de crescimento e áreas aptas para manejo florestal. UFLA, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
30. Scolforo J (2008b) Inventário florestal de Minas Gerais: floresta estacional semidecidual e ombrófila: florística, estrutura, diversidade, similaridade, distribuição diamétrica e de altura, volumetria, tendências de crescimento e áreas aptas para manejo florestal. UFLA, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
31. Silva LCR, Sternberg L, Haridasan M, Hoffmann WA, Miralles-Wilhelm F, Franco AC (2008) Expansion of gallery forests into central Brazilian savannas. Global Change Biology, 14, 2108-2118.
32. Uhl C, Kauffman JB (1990) Deforestation, fire susceptibility, and potential tree responses to fire in the eastern Amazon. Ecology, 71, 437-449.
33. Van Der Werf GR, Randerson JT, Giglio L et al. (2010) Global fire emissions and the contribution of deforestation, savanna, forest, agricultural, and peat fires (1997-2009). Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 10, 11707-11735.