Amazon forest biogeography predicts resilience and vulnerability to drought.

Abstract

Amazonia contains the most extensive tropical forests on Earth, but Amazon carbon sinks of atmospheric CO₂ are declining, as deforestation and climate-change-associated droughts^1-4 threaten to push these forests past a tipping point towards collapse^5-8. Forests exhibit complex drought responses, indicating both resilience (photosynthetic greening) and vulnerability (browning and tree mortality), that are difficult to explain by climate variation alone^9-17. Here we combine remotely sensed photosynthetic indices with ground-measured tree demography to identify mechanisms underlying drought resilience/vulnerability in different intact forest ecotopes^18,19 (defined by water-table depth, soil fertility and texture, and vegetation characteristics). In higher-fertility southern Amazonia, drought response was structured by water-table depth, with resilient greening in shallow-water-table forests (where greater water availability heightened response to excess sunlight), contrasting with vulnerability (browning and excess tree mortality) over deeper water tables. Notably, the resilience of shallow-water-table forest weakened as drought lengthened. By contrast, lower-fertility northern Amazonia, with slower-growing but hardier trees (or, alternatively, tall forests, with deep-rooted water access), supported more-drought-resilient forests independent of water-table depth. This functional biogeography of drought response provides a framework for conservation decisions and improved predictions of heterogeneous forest responses to future climate changes, warning that Amazonia's most productive forests are also at greatest risk, and that longer/more frequent droughts are undermining multiple ecohydrological strategies and capacities for Amazon forest resilience.