A sweet new study: tropical forest species use nonstructural carbohydrates in different ways during drought

Anthropogenic climate change results in more than just elevated temperatures.Precipitation regimes are also impacted,and these changes include altered rainfall amounts,seasonality and variability(Feng et al.2013),and increases in the frequency and severity of droughts(Dai 2013).Climate change is likely to have profound consequences for forests(Brodribb et al.2020).While the potential effects of droughts on forests through tree mortality have been acknowledged for some decades(Karnig and Wyford 1968),a concerted focus on trees and droughts in the scientific literature is relatively recent.As evidence in support of this claim,a Web of Science search for the key words‘tree and mortality and drought’for the years 1900 through 2020 reveals that 82%of articles on this topic have been published in the last decade.As such,there is still disagreement on the mechanisms through which individual trees,species and forest communities respond to drought(Brodribb et al.2020).