Residual water losses mediate the trade-off between growth and drought survival across saplings of 12 tropical rainforest tree species with contrasting hydraulic strategies

Ziegler Camille, Cochard Hervé, Stahl Clément, Foltzer Louis, Gérard Bastien, Goret Jean-Yves, Heuret Patrick, Levionnois Sebastien, Maillard Pascale, Bonal Damien, Coste Sabrina. 2024. Residual water losses mediate the trade-off between growth and drought survival across saplings of 12 tropical rainforest tree species with contrasting hydraulic strategies. Journal of Experimental Botany, 75 (12) : 4128-4147.

https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erae159

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Résumé : Knowledge of the physiological mechanisms underlying species vulnerability to drought is critical for better under- standing patterns of tree mortality. Investigating plant adaptive strategies to drought should thus help to fill this knowledge gap, especially in tropical rainforests exhibiting high functional diversity. In a semi-controlled drought experiment using 12 rainforest tree species, we investigated the diversity in hydraulic strategies and whether they de- termined the ability of saplings to use stored non-structural carbohydrates during an extreme imposed drought. We further explored the importance of water- and carbon-use strategies in relation to drought survival through a model- ling approach. Hydraulic strategies varied considerably across species with a continuum between dehydration toler- ance and avoidance. During dehydration leading to hydraulic failure and irrespective of hydraulic strategies, species showed strong declines in whole-plant starch concentrations and maintenance, or even increases in soluble sugar concentrations, potentially favouring osmotic adjustments. Residual water losses mediated the trade-off between time to hydraulic failure and growth, indicating that dehydration avoidance is an effective drought-survival strategy linked to the 'fast–slow' continuum of plant performance at the sapling stage. Further investigations on residual water losses may be key to understanding the response of tropical rainforest tree communities to climate change.

Mots-clés Agrovoc : forêt tropicale humide, sécheresse, croissance, tolérance à la sécheresse, embolie

Mots-clés géographiques Agrovoc : France, Guyane française, Amazonie

Mots-clés libres : Drought-induced mortality, Hydraulic failure, Hydraulic strategies, Minimum conductance, Non-structural carbohydrates, SurEau model, Tropical forests, Xylem embolism

Agences de financement hors UE : Agence Nationale de la Recherche

Projets sur financement : (FRA) CEnter of the study of Biodiversity in Amazonia, (FRA) Recherches avancées sur l'arbre et les écosytèmes forestiers

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