Thinner bark increases sensitivity of wetter Amazonian tropical forests to fire
Open accessAbstract
Understory fires represent an accelerating threat to Amazonian tropical forests and can, during drought, affect larger areas than deforestation itself. These fires kill trees at rates varying from < 10 to c. 90% depending on fire intensity, forest disturbance history and tree functional traits. Here, we examine variation in bark thickness across the Amazon. Bark can protect trees from fires, but it is often assumed to be consistently thin across tropical forests. Here, we show that investment in bark varies, with thicker bark in dry forests and thinner in wetter forests. We also show that thinner bark translated into higher fire‐driven tree mortality in wetter forests, with between 0.67 and 5.86 gigatonnes CO 2 lost in Amazon understory fires between 2001 and 2010. Trait‐enabled global vegetation models that explicitly include variation in bark thickness are likely to improve the predictions of fire effects on carbon cycling in tropical forests.
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Most seasonal forest trees have various strategies to cope with water deficit owing to evolutionary and adaptive responses to historical drought events.
“By contrast, most seasonal forest trees have various strategies to cope with water deficit owing to evolutionary and adaptive responses to historical drought events32,63.”
From Critical transitions in the Amazon forest system (2024) · cites this paper as [63]
The Discussion (p. 11) suggests that vulnerable hydraulic architecture is common in trees without a history of drought or fire, which is consistent with a possible response to past drought. But it does not establish that most seasonal-forest trees have various water-deficit strategies or that those strategies evolved in response to historical drought; its discussion of bark as a drought-tolerance trait is explicitly cautious (p. 10). (LLM, conf=0.72)
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The drivers and impacts of Amazon forest degradation
Lapola, D. M., Pinho, P., Barlow, J., Aragão, L. E. O. C., Berenguer, E., Carmenta, R., Liddy, H. M., Seixas, H., Silva, C. V. J., Silva-Junior, C. H. L., et al. (2023) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.abp8622 · Cited by 630 · see citing works
Self-citationCritical transitions in the Amazon forest system
Flores, B. M., Montoya, E., Sakschewski, B., Nascimento, N., Staal, A., Betts, R. A., Levis, C., Lapola, D. M., Esquível-Muelbert, A., Jakovac, C., et al. (2024) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06970-0 · Cited by 607 · see citing works
- Authors
- Staver, A. C., Brando, P. M., Barlow, J., Morton, D. C., Paine, C. E. T., Malhi, Y., Araujo Murakami, A., & del Aguila Pasquel, J.
- Affiliations
- Yale University (US)
- Woodwell Climate Research Center (US)
- Universidade Federal de Lavras (BR)
- Goddard Space Flight Center (US)
- University of New England (AU)
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Museo de Historia Natural Noel Kempff Mercado Universidad Autónoma Gabriel René Moreno Santa Cruz Bolivia
- Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonia Peruana Iquitos Peru
- Corresponding author
- Staver, Ann Carla
- ORCID
- Venue
- Ecology Letters
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2019-10-22
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 99-106
- ISSN
- 1461-023X (ISSN-L)
- 1461-0248
- OpenAlex
- W2981419578
- Cited by
- 61
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 8
- FWCI
- 3.98
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- Locations
- Ecology Letters (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Lancaster EPrints (Lancaster University) (submittedVersion)
- Americanae (AECID Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- RUNE (Research UNE) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Division of Emerging Frontiers (1802453, 1802754)
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- National Science Foundation (1802754)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Fire effects on ecosystems
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Forest ecology and management
- Keywords
- bark thickness, understory fires, Amazon rainforest, fire sensitivity, tree mortality, drought, tree functional traits, carbon loss, vegetation models
- MeSH terms
- Sensitivity and Specificity, Trees, Plant Bark, Carbon Cycle, Forests
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