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The resilience of Amazon tree cover to past and present drying

Kukla, Tyler ; Ahlström, Anders LU orcid ; Maezumi, S. Yoshi ; Chevalier, Manuel ; Lu, Zhengyao LU ; Winnick, Matthew J. and Chamberlain, C. Page (2021) In Global and Planetary Change 202.
Abstract

The Amazon forest is increasingly vulnerable to dieback and encroachment of grasslands and agricultural fields. Threats to these forested ecosystems include drying, deforestation, and fire, but feedbacks among these make it difficult to determine their relative importance. Here, we reconstruct the central and western Amazon tree cover response to aridity and fire in the mid-Holocene—a time of less intensive human land use and markedly drier conditions than today—to assess the resilience of tree cover to drying and the strength of vegetation-climate feedbacks. We use pollen, charcoal, and speleothem oxygen isotope proxy data to show that Amazon tree cover in the mid-Holocene was resilient to drying in excess of the driest bias-corrected... (More)

The Amazon forest is increasingly vulnerable to dieback and encroachment of grasslands and agricultural fields. Threats to these forested ecosystems include drying, deforestation, and fire, but feedbacks among these make it difficult to determine their relative importance. Here, we reconstruct the central and western Amazon tree cover response to aridity and fire in the mid-Holocene—a time of less intensive human land use and markedly drier conditions than today—to assess the resilience of tree cover to drying and the strength of vegetation-climate feedbacks. We use pollen, charcoal, and speleothem oxygen isotope proxy data to show that Amazon tree cover in the mid-Holocene was resilient to drying in excess of the driest bias-corrected future precipitation projections. Experiments with a dynamic global vegetation model (LPJ-GUESS) suggest tree cover resilience may be owed to weak feedbacks that act to amplify tree cover loss with drying. We also compare these results to observational data and find that, under limited human interference, modern tree cover is likely similarly resilient to mid-Holocene levels of aridification. Our results suggest human-driven fire and deforestation likely pose a greater threat to the future of Amazon ecosystems than drying alone.

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author
; ; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Amazon resilience, Dynamic global vegetation model, Fire, Mid-Holocene, Oxygen isotopes, Pollen
in
Global and Planetary Change
volume
202
article number
103520
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • scopus:85106961663
ISSN
0921-8181
DOI
10.1016/j.gloplacha.2021.103520
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
a64e2767-3aec-4f01-bcc7-cf9370bf14cc
date added to LUP
2021-06-11 10:56:43
date last changed
2023-02-21 10:20:08
@article{a64e2767-3aec-4f01-bcc7-cf9370bf14cc,
  abstract     = {{<p>The Amazon forest is increasingly vulnerable to dieback and encroachment of grasslands and agricultural fields. Threats to these forested ecosystems include drying, deforestation, and fire, but feedbacks among these make it difficult to determine their relative importance. Here, we reconstruct the central and western Amazon tree cover response to aridity and fire in the mid-Holocene—a time of less intensive human land use and markedly drier conditions than today—to assess the resilience of tree cover to drying and the strength of vegetation-climate feedbacks. We use pollen, charcoal, and speleothem oxygen isotope proxy data to show that Amazon tree cover in the mid-Holocene was resilient to drying in excess of the driest bias-corrected future precipitation projections. Experiments with a dynamic global vegetation model (LPJ-GUESS) suggest tree cover resilience may be owed to weak feedbacks that act to amplify tree cover loss with drying. We also compare these results to observational data and find that, under limited human interference, modern tree cover is likely similarly resilient to mid-Holocene levels of aridification. Our results suggest human-driven fire and deforestation likely pose a greater threat to the future of Amazon ecosystems than drying alone.</p>}},
  author       = {{Kukla, Tyler and Ahlström, Anders and Maezumi, S. Yoshi and Chevalier, Manuel and Lu, Zhengyao and Winnick, Matthew J. and Chamberlain, C. Page}},
  issn         = {{0921-8181}},
  keywords     = {{Amazon resilience; Dynamic global vegetation model; Fire; Mid-Holocene; Oxygen isotopes; Pollen}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{07}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Global and Planetary Change}},
  title        = {{The resilience of Amazon tree cover to past and present drying}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2021.103520}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.gloplacha.2021.103520}},
  volume       = {{202}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}