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Tropical Forests. III. Ecophysiological Responses to Drought

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Physiological Ecology of Tropical Plants

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Abstract

Seasonality of rainfall (Sect. 3.1) can lead to the formation of tree rings in wet tropical forests (Worbes 1999; Dünisch et al. 2003). Seasonal drought may occur regularly in these moist forests and not only in dry tropical forests. In Central and South America it can be enforced by southern oscillation or El Niño events (Engelbrecht et al. 2002). After extreme dry periods tropical rain forests may even be threatened by fire (van Nieuwstadt and Sheil 2005, Sect. 10.3). Along the 65 km across the isthmus of Panamá, where B. ENGELBRECHT and colleagues have studied tree seedling performance in relation to drought stress in the moist forests there is a gradient of forest formation due to a moisture gradient from the drier Pacific to the wetter Atlantic side (Fig. 5.1A). The number of days when no precipitation reaches the forest floor (days with lower than 3mm rain) range from 20 to more than 90 in the moist forests across the isthmus (Fig. 5.1B).

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(2008). Tropical Forests. III. Ecophysiological Responses to Drought. In: Physiological Ecology of Tropical Plants. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-71793-5_5

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