Tropical root responses to global changes: A synthesis.

Amanda L Cordeiro, Daniela F Cusack, Mareli Sanchez-Julia, Lindsay A McCulloch, Kelly Andersen, Laura Toro, Chris M Smith-Martin, Om Prakash Ghimire, Ming Y Lee, Milton H Diaz-Toribio, Fiona M Soper, Marie Arnaud, Shalom D Addo-Danso, Michelle Y Wong, Laynara F Lugli, Daniela Yaffar, Ina C Meier, Jennifer S Powers, Richard J Norby, Lee H Dietterich

Journal: Global change biology 2024;30(7):e17420

PMID: 39044411

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Abstract

Tropical ecosystems face escalating global change. These shifts can disrupt tropical forests' carbon (C) balance and impact root dynamics. Since roots perform essential functions such as resource acquisition and tissue protection, root responses can inform about the strategies and vulnerabilities of ecosystems facing present and future global changes. However, root trait dynamics are poorly understood, especially in tropical ecosystems. We analyzed existing research on tropical root responses to key global change drivers: warming, drought, flooding, cyclones, nitrogen (N) deposition, elevated (e) CO, and fires. Based on tree species- and community-level literature, we obtained 266 root trait observations from 93 studies across 24 tropical countries. We found differences in the proportion of root responsiveness to global change among different global change drivers but not among root categories. In particular, we observed that tropical root systems responded to warming and eCO by increasing root biomass in species-scale studies. Drought increased the root: shoot ratio with no change in root biomass, indicating a decline in aboveground biomass. Despite N deposition being the most studied global change driver, it had some of the most variable effects on root characteristics, with few predictable responses. Episodic disturbances such as cyclones, fires, and flooding consistently resulted in a change in root trait expressions, with cyclones and fires increasing root production, potentially due to shifts in plant community and nutrient inputs, while flooding changed plant regulatory metabolisms due to low oxygen conditions. The data available to date clearly show that tropical forest root characteristics and dynamics are responding to global change, although in ways that are not always predictable. This synthesis indicates the need for replicated studies across root characteristics at species and community scales under different global change factors.

Address: Environmental Science Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA.; Functional Forest Ecology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.; School of Life Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany.; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.; Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, New York, USA.; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA.; Forest and Climate Change Division, CSIR-Forestry Research Institute of Ghana, Kumasi, Ghana.; Sorbonne Université, CNRS, INRAE, Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences (IEES), Paris, France.; School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.; Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.; Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.; Department of Biology, Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania, USA.; Jardín Botánico Francisco Javier Clavijero, Instituto de Ecología, A.C. Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico.; Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.; Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, USA.; Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.; Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.; Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.; Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.; Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.; Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Ancon, Republic of Panama.; Department of Integrative Biology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA.; Functional Forest Ecology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.; Department of Biology and Bieler School of Environment, McGill University, Montreal, Qubec, Canada.; Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.; Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Ancon, Republic of Panama.

DOI: 10.1111/gcb.17420

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MeSH Terms: Plant Roots, Tropical Climate, Climate Change, Droughts, Trees, Biomass, Nitrogen, Forests, Floods, Fires