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

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

Ya-Jun Chen  1   2   3   4 , Brendan Choat  5 , Frank Sterck  4 , Phisamai Maenpuen  1   6 , Masatoshi Katabuchi  1 , Shu-Bin Zhang  1   3 , Kyle W Tomlinson  7 , Rafael S Oliveira  8 , Yong-Jiang Zhang  9 , Jing-Xian Shen  1   10 , Kun-Fang Cao  11 , Steven Jansen  12
Affiliations

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

Ya-Jun Chen et al. Ecol Lett. 2021 Nov.

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.

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References

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