Ecophysiology of trees of seasonally dry tropics: Comparisons among phenologies

By Derek Eamus, L. Prior. 2001

230 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the ecophysiology of trees of seasonally dry tropics. This chapter focuses on the seasonally dry tropical and subtropical woodlands and forests of the world, and differentiates woodland from forest on the basis of percentage canopy cover. It presents the physiological and structural properties that determine water and gas exchange relationships of trees in seasonally dry tropical habitats. These properties must eventually be linked to the larger-scale processes to explain patterns of productivity and ecosystem function. Seasonally dry forests represent an important class of vegetation, globally. Temperature and light availability are infrequently limiting for productivity. However, water can be very limiting for a significant part of the year in the majority, but not for all seasonally dry woodlands and forests. Deciduous and evergreen species represent two ends of a continuum of leaf lifespan. The chapter discusses the cost-benefit analyses for leaves of savanna trees, and mentions that construction costs of leaves can be calculated from detailed investigations of biochemical pathways utilized during construction of the principal components of leaves.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/051a3977dbbf3c2012cf49bfc2d4a222c4f9b66c

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Citations in the corpus

Seedling root morphology and biomass allocation of 62 tropical tree species in relation to drought‐ and shade‐tolerance (2009, background): “Deciduous species are therefore often light-demanding (Eamus & Prior 2001) and highly efficient in reabsorbing nutrients before shedding their leaves (Aerts 1996; H. Paz, pers. comm.), which are cheap because of a low biomass investment per unit leaf area, but costly in terms of nutrient or carbon…”
ADAPTIVE VARIATION IN THE VULNERABILITY OF WOODY PLANTS TO XYLEM CAVITATION (2004, background): “Deciduous species may avoid periods of severe water limitation by shedding leaves (both during drought and winter) and, as a result, may experience weaker selection for increased resistance to water-stress-induced cavitation (Sobrado 1997, Eamus and Prior 2001).”
Seedling Traits Determine Drought Tolerance of Tropical Tree Species (2008, background): “This allows high rates of photosynthesis when water is available and accumulation of carbon reserves for new foliage production after drought (cf Eamus & Prior 2001).”
Phenology of five tree species of a tropical dry forest in Yucatan, Mexico: effects of environmental and physiological factors (2010, background): “in rainfall (Daubenmire 1972; Borchert 1994a; Bullock and Solis-Magallanes 1990; Eamus and Prior 2001); 2.”
Time-dependent effects of climate and drought on tree growth in a Neotropical dry forest: Short-term tolerance vs. long-term sensitivity (2014, result): “In TDFs, deciduous tree species show maximum rates of photosynthesis and hydraulic 300 conductivity during the wet season which agrees with our findings (Eamus and Prior, 2001).”
Spatial patterns and temporal dynamics in savanna vegetation phenology across the North Australian Tropical Transect (2013, background): “Savannas are most commonly found in the tropics and sub-tropics and are present in both mesic and xeric regions (Eamus & Prior, 2001; Frost et al., 1986).”
Biological constraints on water transport in the soil–plant–atmosphere system (2013, background): “Despite strong inverse relationship between w50 and kP,sap across PFTs and climates, other water use strategies often mask this relationship across species, includingphenological responses todrought aswell asdifferent stem capacitance and stomatal regulation [23,137–139].”
Leaf functional traits of Neotropical savanna trees in relation to seasonal water deficit (2005, background): “Some shallow-rooted deciduous and evergreens are also able to flush before the onset of the rainy season (Table 1). In this case, a tight control of transpiration by reductions in stomatal conductance and partial or total leaf shedding coupled with osmotic adjustment and internal water storage may a”
Plant functional type classifications in tropical dry forests in Costa Rica: leaf habit versus taxonomic approaches (2010, background): “A possible for reason for our contrasting results is that many previous studies have sampled only a small number of taxa to represent each of the putative functional groups, and in many cases these taxa are not phylogenetically independent (discussed in Eamus & Prior 2001).”
Plant allometry, stoichiometry and the temperature-dependence of primary productivity (2005, background): “Secondly, the model is also consistent with the less-often noted correlation between leaf area index and canopy N concentration (Pierce et al., 1994; Baldocchi & Meyers, 1998; Eamus & Prior, 2001; Green et al., 2003).”
Hydraulic architecture of deciduous and evergreen dry rainforest tree species from north-eastern Australia (2005, background): “Australian dry rainforest communities, similar to American, Indian and African dry tropical forests, contain a mix of deciduous and evergreen tree species (Eamus and Prior 2001).”
Ecology of Leaf Longevity (2011, background): “For example, an unfavorable period resulting from drought in Australia has been defined as the occurrence of at least 3 consecutive months with less than 25 (or 50) mm precipitation (Eamus and Prior 2001).”
Hydraulic and photosynthetic co‐ordination in seasonally dry tropical forest trees (2002, background): “These forests are characterized by a variety of leaf habits, phenologies, and growth forms (Borchert 1994; Machado & Tyree 1994; Holbrook, Whitbeck & Mooney 1995; Medina 1995; Eamus & Prior 2001) all apparently linked to the seasonal availability of water.”
Tree growth rates in north Australian savanna habitats: seasonal patterns and correlations with leaf attributes (2004, background): “These tropical savannas occupy 25% of the Australian continent, and play a major role in the continent's carbon and water cycles (Eamus and Prior 2001) Rainfall in Australian savannas is strongly seasonal, and 97% of Darwin's annual average rain falls between the summer months of October and April,…”