CORDIS OpenAire CORE (RIOXX-UK Aggregator) Sygma HAL INRAE Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) HAL-IRD Crossref HAL Descartes Europe PubMed Central European Union Open Data Portal https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/187195/1/Bauman_et_al_ms_Nature_final_AAM.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04737-7.pdf https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04737-7 Nature Open Access 2022-05-18 2023-10-23 Evidence exists that tree mortality is accelerating in some regions of the tropics1,2, with profound consequences for the future of the tropical carbon sink and the global anthropogenic carbon budget left to limit peak global warming below 2 °C. However, the mechanisms that may be driving such mortality changes and whether particular species are especially vulnerable remain unclear3-8. Here we analyse a 49-year record of tree dynamics from 24 old-growth forest plots encompassing a broad climatic gradient across the Australian moist tropics and find that annual tree mortality risk has, on average, doubled across all plots and species over the last 35 years, indicating a potential halving in life expectancy and carbon residence time. Associated losses in biomass were not offset by gains from growth and recruitment. Plots in less moist local climates presented higher average mortality risk, but local mean climate did not predict the pace of temporal increase in mortality risk. Species varied in the trajectories of their mortality risk, with the highest average risk found nearer to the upper end of the atmospheric vapour pressure deficit niches of species. A long-term increase in vapour pressure deficit was evident across the region, suggesting that thresholds involving atmospheric water stress, driven by global warming, may be a primary cause of increasing tree mortality in moist tropical forests. Risk 0301 basic medicine Carbon Sequestration Time Factors [SDV.BID.SPT]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biodiversity/Systematics Population dynamics Acclimatization [SDV.BID.SPT]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biodiversity/Systematics, Phylogenetics and taxonomy Global Warming History, 21st Century 333 [SDV.BV.BOT] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Vegetal Biology/Botanics Trees 03 medical and health sciences [SDV.EE.ECO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology, environment/Ecosystems Stress, Physiological [SDV.BID.SPT] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biodiversity/Systematics, Phylogenetics and taxonomy [SDV.EE.ECO] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology, environment/Ecosystems Community ecology Biomass 580 Population Density Tropical Climate 0303 health sciences Dehydration Atmosphere Climate-change ecology Australia Water Humidity Phylogenetics and taxonomy [SDV.BV.BOT]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Vegetal Biology/Botanics History, 20th Century 15. Life on land Tropical ecology Carbon [SDE.BE] Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology 13. Climate action [SDV.EE.ECO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology Forest ecology environment/Ecosystems Bauman, David, Fortunel, Claire, Delhaye, Guillaume, Malhi, Yadvinder, Cernusak, Lucas A., Bentley, Lisa Patrick, Rifai, Sami W., Aguirre-Gutiérrez, Jesús, Oliveras Menor, Imma, Phillips, Oliver L., Mcnellis, Brandon E., Bradford, Matt, Laurance, Susan, Hutchinson, Michael F., Dempsey, Raymond, Santos-Andrade, Paul, Ninantay-Rivera, Hugo, Chambi Paucar, Jimmy, Mcmahon, Sean, 2022-05-18 journalpaper Evidence exists that tree mortality is accelerating in some regions of the tropics1,2, with profound consequences for the future of the tropical carbon sink and the global anthropogenic carbon budget left to limit peak global warming below 2 °C. However, the mechanisms that may be driving such mortality changes and whether particular species are especially vulnerable remain unclear3-8. Here we analyse a 49-year record of tree dynamics from 24 old-growth forest plots encompassing a broad climatic gradient across the Australian moist tropics and find that annual tree mortality risk has, on average, doubled across all plots and species over the last 35 years, indicating a potential halving in life expectancy and carbon residence time. Associated losses in biomass were not offset by gains from growth and recruitment. Plots in less moist local climates presented higher average mortality risk, but local mean climate did not predict the pace of temporal increase in mortality risk. Species varied in the trajectories of their mortality risk, with the highest average risk found nearer to the upper end of the atmospheric vapour pressure deficit niches of species. A long-term increase in vapour pressure deficit was evident across the region, suggesting that thresholds involving atmospheric water stress, driven by global warming, may be a primary cause of increasing tree mortality in moist tropical forests. Tropical tree mortality has increased with rising atmospheric water stress 10.1038/s41586-022-04737-7