Tree drought–mortality risk depends more on intrinsic species resistance than on stand species diversity

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F62156489%3A43410%2F24%3A43925746" target="_blank" >RIV/62156489:43410/24:43925746 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.17503" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.17503</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.17503" target="_blank" >10.1111/gcb.17503</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Tree drought–mortality risk depends more on intrinsic species resistance than on stand species diversity

Original language description

Increasing tree diversity is considered a key management option to adapt forests to climate change. However, the effect of species diversity on a forest&apos;s ability to cope with extreme drought remains elusive. In this study, we assessed drought tolerance (xylem vulnerability to cavitation) and water stress (water potential), and combined them into a metric of drought-mortality risk (hydraulic safety margin) during extreme 2021 or 2022 summer droughts in five European tree diversity experiments encompassing different biomes. Overall, we found that drought-mortality risk was primarily driven by species identity (56.7% of the total variability), while tree diversity had a much lower effect (8% of the total variability). This result remained valid at the local scale (i.e within experiment) and across the studied European biomes. Tree diversity effect on drought-mortality risk was mediated by changes in water stress intensity, not by changes in xylem vulnerability to cavitation. Significant diversity effects were observed in all experiments, but those effects often varied from positive to negative across mixtures for a given species. Indeed, we found that the composition of the mixtures (i.e., the identities of the species mixed), but not the species richness of the mixture per se, is a driver of tree drought-mortality risk. This calls for a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms before tree diversity can be considered an operational adaption tool to extreme drought. Forest diversification should be considered jointly with management strategies focussed on favouring drought-tolerant species.

Czech name

—

Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

40102 - Forestry

Project

—

Continuities

O - Projekt operacniho programu

Publication year

2024

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Global Change Biology

ISSN

1354-1013

e-ISSN

1365-2486

Volume of the periodical

30

Issue of the periodical within the volume

9

Country of publishing house

US - UNITED STATES

Number of pages

15

Pages from-to

"e17503"

UT code for WoS article

001318325800001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85204798836