Linking biotic attack with tree mortality & canopy condition in droughted tropical rainforest
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Geosciences
Abstract
We propose an international network to explore this key knowledge gap in understanding the effects of pests and pathogens in accelerating tropical rainforest tree mortality during drought. The project will deliver an integrated and focused anlaysis, using expertise in plant physiology, forest ecology and microbial and insect ecology. It will also make use of the unique leverage of the world's only long-term drought experiment network in tropical forests. We will use field-based workshops at two current tropical forest drought experiments, in Australia and Brazil, to bring together experts in plant function, the effects of pest and pathogen ('biotic') attack on woody tissue, and vegetation modelling. New ground-based and remotely-sensed measurements will be examined to test for relationships between measures of biotic attack and metrics of plant function during experimental drought. We will compare responses in different tree size classes, tree species groups, and at the level of the forest ecosystem (large experimental plot treatment).
The outcome will be new insights into the causes of tropical rainforest tree death from drought, in relation to plant physiology and insect or microbial attack. This insight will be delivered in the form of new data, new scientfic articles and information that can be used by vegetation modellers to predict the effects of drought on tropical forests in the future.
The group of experts built using these funds will form a pre-eminent multi-disciplinary consortium in the subject area, capable of advancing the subject into the future for the benefit of the science, interested environmental policy makers and university educators.
The outcome will be new insights into the causes of tropical rainforest tree death from drought, in relation to plant physiology and insect or microbial attack. This insight will be delivered in the form of new data, new scientfic articles and information that can be used by vegetation modellers to predict the effects of drought on tropical forests in the future.
The group of experts built using these funds will form a pre-eminent multi-disciplinary consortium in the subject area, capable of advancing the subject into the future for the benefit of the science, interested environmental policy makers and university educators.
Planned Impact
We propose to build a team to explore the relationships between new measures of biotic attack in the stem and canopy of droughted rainforest trees, with mesurements of their physiological function and with their risk of drought-related mortality (as quantified using current NERC support).
The outcomes and impacts will be (i) new multi-disciplinary datasets; (ii) at least two papers (a review and a new-data paper) and new insights to support model development; and (iii) a unique consortium ready to address large emerging science opportunities (UK, EU, global) with significant potential impact on international environmental policy and natural resource management.
This proposal will generate new collaborations with experts globally (USA, Australia, Europe, Brazil). It adds substantial novelty to NE/J011002/1 upon which it builds, but without which it would not be feasible. It comprises an advanced scoping and synthesis study to address a key gap in understanding of the climate vulnerability in tropical forests, and will enable testing and standardisation of a powerful but new combination of methods. The international partners bring specific new expertise and capability and the outcomes will include synthesis and comparative papers, and a unique multi-disciplinary group with substantial future funding leverage.
We envisage long term impacts as this group will be the first to address the question of tropical rainforest vulnerability to drought in this integrated way. We expect to deliver unique research capacity and insight through the testing of new methods, transferring that information into modelling contexts and expanding a key research area that has lagged plant ecological research but is now recognised as potentialy key to understanding how future climates may affect rainforest functioning and diversity in the coming century.
Our outputs will have wide potential impact, used by: (i) the ecological science community; (ii) the Earth system modelling community; (iii) the ecosystem services analysis community; (iv) policy making bodies such as government departments and international development banks (eg. IDB); and (v) conservation bodies and related interest groups.
The outcomes and impacts will be (i) new multi-disciplinary datasets; (ii) at least two papers (a review and a new-data paper) and new insights to support model development; and (iii) a unique consortium ready to address large emerging science opportunities (UK, EU, global) with significant potential impact on international environmental policy and natural resource management.
This proposal will generate new collaborations with experts globally (USA, Australia, Europe, Brazil). It adds substantial novelty to NE/J011002/1 upon which it builds, but without which it would not be feasible. It comprises an advanced scoping and synthesis study to address a key gap in understanding of the climate vulnerability in tropical forests, and will enable testing and standardisation of a powerful but new combination of methods. The international partners bring specific new expertise and capability and the outcomes will include synthesis and comparative papers, and a unique multi-disciplinary group with substantial future funding leverage.
We envisage long term impacts as this group will be the first to address the question of tropical rainforest vulnerability to drought in this integrated way. We expect to deliver unique research capacity and insight through the testing of new methods, transferring that information into modelling contexts and expanding a key research area that has lagged plant ecological research but is now recognised as potentialy key to understanding how future climates may affect rainforest functioning and diversity in the coming century.
Our outputs will have wide potential impact, used by: (i) the ecological science community; (ii) the Earth system modelling community; (iii) the ecosystem services analysis community; (iv) policy making bodies such as government departments and international development banks (eg. IDB); and (v) conservation bodies and related interest groups.
Organisations
- University of Edinburgh (Lead Research Organisation)
- Natural History Museum (Project Partner)
- Museu Paraense EmÃlio Goeldi (Project Partner)
- Federal University of Para (Project Partner)
- James Cook University (Project Partner)
- George Washington University (Project Partner)
- University of Leeds (Project Partner)
Publications
Nottingham AT
(2019)
Adaptation of soil microbial growth to temperature: Using a tropical elevation gradient to predict future changes.
in Global change biology
Bittencourt PRL
(2020)
Amazonia trees have limited capacity to acclimate plant hydraulic properties in response to long-term drought.
in Global change biology
Rowland L
(2018)
Drought stress and tree size determine stem CO2 efflux in a tropical forest.
in The New phytologist
Nottingham AT
(2018)
Microbes follow Humboldt: temperature drives plant and soil microbial diversity patterns from the Amazon to the Andes.
in Ecology
Rowland L
(2021)
Plant traits controlling growth change in response to a drier climate.
in The New phytologist
Rowland L
(2018)
Shock and stabilisation following long-term drought in tropical forest from 15 years of litterfall dynamics
in Journal of Ecology
Jones S
(2020)
The impact of a simple representation of non-structural carbohydrates on the simulated response of tropical forests to drought
in Biogeosciences
Rowland L
(2020)
The response of carbon assimilation and storage to long-term drought in tropical trees is dependent on light availability
in Functional Ecology
| Description | We are working on the data collected so far. We extended the use of new equipment to address our limited knowledge of tree internal cavities in relation to taxon, climate and climate stress and this will extend our initial goals in a useful and productive way. We also used new remote sensing methods to test for drought stress using reflectance measures. Key findings to date include: (i) first evidence of biotic attack in trees stems resulting from drought; (ii) evidence of significant differences in canopy structure following long term drought; evidence of signficant differences in hyperspectral reflectance properties of droughted vs non-droughted canopy tree leaves; (iii) evidence of differences in reflectance that are associated with drought stress; (iv) additional associated findings focusing on the traits determining growth pre adn post drought, the principal measures of drought stress and their relationship with mortality. These data are being worked up into papers, and some have already been delivered. |
| Exploitation Route | We hope that the new information from this grant will be ground-breaking in that few other groups, if any, have considered how to quantify pest and pathogen damage in the way we are trying to. We hope this will build expertise to allow further work in this important area, that may hold one of the keys to understanding how drought leads to death in rainforest trees. Our findings so far suggest that we have identified a clear signal of biotic attack in droughted rainforest trees; we will work further on this in the coming months. |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Education,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Description | They have been used in communication activities with the local collaborative partner in Brazil - this provides increased awareness and helps with building 'societal' support for the research. The second regional partner, in Australia, James Cook University has also been fully engaged. A full second international workshop was held in autumn 2018, where the range of planned measurements was delivered. We now have datasets on canopy structure, soil condition and termite abundance, on tree stem condition and, individually for the Australian site, leaf reflective properties. Our workshop series completed with plans for more than one paper using the above data, and most recently our Australian site has received new Australian national funding to support work on biotic attack during drought at their field experiment. Some of our work has also begun to have impact in the literature. The nature of the transdisciplinarity of the work means that this takes longer in some areas. However, we have a high impact paper in Nature - Comms Earth and Env, showing the impacts of drought on fungal species dominance - we identified a new fungus, showed that it was probably providing some resistance to drought, and also identified important changes in soil biodiversity. Our work on lacunae in tree trunks is ongoing, with a new masters student and a possible publication emerging. Finally, our work here has intensified the collaboration among drought experimetns that we first envisaged, and we are now applying for new post doc funding to compare the effects of biotic attack during drought in Australia and Brazil. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2018 |
| Sector | Education,Environment |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |