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Drought effects on seedling survival in a tropical moist forest

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Abstract

The amount and seasonality of rainfall varies strongly in the tropics, and plant species abundance, distribution and diversity are correlated with rainfall. Drought periods leading to plant stress occur not only in dry forests, but also in moist and even wet forests. We quantified experimentally the effect of drought on survival of first year seedlings of 28 co-occurring tropical woody plant species in the understory of a tropical moist forest. The seedlings were transplanted to plots and subjected to a drought and an irrigation treatment for 22 weeks during the dry season. Drought effects on mortality and wilting behavior varied greatly among species, so that relative survival in the dry treatment ranged from 0% to about 100% of that in the irrigated treatment. Drought stress was the main factor in mortality, causing about 90% (median) of the total mortality observed in the dry treatment. In almost half of the species, the difference in survival between treatments was not significant even after 22 weeks, implying that many of the species are well adapted to drought in this forest. Relative drought survival was significantly higher in species associated with dry habitats than in those associated with wet habitats, and in species with higher abundance on the dry side of the Isthmus of Panama, than in those more abundant on the wet side. These data show that differential species survival in response to drought, combined with variation in soil moisture availability, may be important for species distribution at the local and regional scale in many tropical forests.

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Acknowledgements

We thank David Ackerly and Phyllis Coley for valuable comments on the manuscript. Maria del Carmen Ruiz, David Galvez, and Didimo Moran conducted most of the labor-intensive drought experiment. Muchas Gracias!! We thank Eli Robbins, Ana Matilde Ruiz, Teresa Ruiz, and Sebastian Brulez for helping in the seedling censuses and Beatriz Baker, Kelly Anderson for support in data management. Robert Wolf conducted preliminary studies, and did a large amount of the seed collection, and raising of the seedlings in the greenhouse. Osvaldo de Leon, Andres Hernandez, Rolando Perez, Salomon Aguilar, Rafael Aizprua, Nayda Flores, Blanca Arauz supported us with their invaluable expertise in seed and plant identification. This project was funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the University of Utah, and the USDA Forest Service

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, PO Box 2072, Balboa, Republic of Panama

    Bettina M. J. Engelbrecht & Thomas A. Kursar

  2. Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA

    Thomas A. Kursar

  3. USDA Forest Service, PO Box 968, Burlington, VT, 05446, USA

    Melvin T. Tyree

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  1. Bettina M. J. Engelbrecht
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Correspondence to Bettina M. J. Engelbrecht.

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Engelbrecht, B.M.J., Kursar, T.A. & Tyree, M.T. Drought effects on seedling survival in a tropical moist forest. Trees 19, 312–321 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-004-0393-0

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