How will bark contribute to plant survival under climate change? A comparison of plant communities in wet and dry environments. Julieta Rosell, Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
[email protected] INTRODUCTION Climate change and the effect on vegetation structure and function Climate change is bringing new conditions of temperature, rainfall, and fire regime in most of the world (Ipcc, 2014). These new conditions are affecting ecosystems worldwide, including forests. Forests in general, and tropical forests in particular, have a very strong role in the regulation of climate (Bonan, 2008) and are crucial to the provision of multiple ecosystem services (Brandon, 2014). Because of this importance, there is an ever- increasing interest in understanding how tropical forests respond to these new climate conditions (Cavaleri et al., 2015). Understanding the mechanistic causes of these responses is crucial to manage the effect of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems. Several studies have addressed the effect of new climate conditions on plant traits and performance (Corlett & Westcott, 2013; Soudzilovskaia et al., 2013; Law, 2014; Tausz & Grulke, 2014). These studies have indicated that, for example, plants have started to produce flowers and leaves earlier in spring (Cleland et al., 2012), and that higher net primary productivity will increase as a result of climate change in certain areas (Nemani et al., 2003), whereas increased tree mortality will be expected in others (Anderegg et al., 2013). Most studies have mainly focused on well known organs such as leaves (Li et al., 2015) and wood (Choat et al., 2012). Despite being so important for plant function and representing a significant amount of biomass, the role of bark in the response to climate change and in plant survival in general is unclear.