Abstract
Climate models predict that everwet western Amazonian forests will face warmer and wetter atmospheric conditions, and increased cloud cover. It remains unclear how these changes will impact plant reproductive performance, such as flowering, which plays a central role in sustaining food webs and forest regeneration. Warmer and wetter nights may cause reduced flower production, via increased dark respiration rates or alteration in the reliability of flowering cue-based processes. Additionally, more persistent cloud cover should reduce the amounts of solar irradiance, which could limit flower production. We tested whether interannual variation in flower production has changed in response to fluctuations in irradiance, rainfall, temperature, and relative humidity over 18 yrs in an everwet forest in Ecuador. Analyses of 184 plant species showed that flower production declined as nighttime temperature and relative humidity increased, suggesting that warmer nights and greater atmospheric water saturation negatively impacted reproduction. Species varied in their flowering responses to climatic variables but this variation was not explained by life form or phylogeny. Our results shed light on how plant communities will respond to climatic changes in this everwet region, in which the impacts of these changes have been poorly studied compared with more seasonal Neotropical areas.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1035-1046 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | New Phytologist |
| Volume | 241 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2023 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2023 New Phytologist Foundation.
Funding
JV was funded by a G. Evelyn Hutchinson Environmental Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies (Yale University, CT, USA). We thank Pablo Alvia, Alvaro Pérez, Zornitza Aguilar, Paola Barriga, Matt Priest, Caroline Whitefoord, and Gorky Villa for assistance in collecting data or identifying species; Elina Gomez for entry of trap data; Hugo Navarrete, Katya Romoleroux and the QCA herbarium staff, and David Lasso and the ECY staff for help with logistics and needed permitting; Rick Condit, Elizabeth Losos, Robin Foster, and Henrik Balslev for initial encouragement to work within the Yasuní Forest Dynamics Plot; Hugo Romero for initially summarising the YFDP and SSP weather data sets; Pablo Jarrin for setting up the TEAM weather station, and David Lasso and Carlos Padilla for maintaining that equipment and making the data available; and the Ecuadorian Ministerio del Ambiente for permission to work in Yasuní National Park. The Forest Dynamics Plot of Yasuní National Park has been made possible through the generous support of the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE) funds of donaciones del impuesto a la renta, the government of Ecuador, the US National Science Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and the University of Aarhus of Denmark. The project began while NCG was at the Natural History Museum, London, with funding (2000–2004) from the Department of Botany (NHM), the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, British Airways, and the Natural Environment Research Council (GR9/04037). It continued with NCG at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (2005–2021). We thank the Center for Tropical Forest Science for transitional funding (2006–2008, 2017–2018) and the National Science Foundation for long-term funding (2006–2020; DEB-0614525, DEB-1122634, DEB-1754632, DEB-1754668). JV was funded by a G. Evelyn Hutchinson Environmental Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies (Yale University, CT, USA). We thank Pablo Alvia, Alvaro Pérez, Zornitza Aguilar, Paola Barriga, Matt Priest, Caroline Whitefoord, and Gorky Villa for assistance in collecting data or identifying species; Elina Gomez for entry of trap data; Hugo Navarrete, Katya Romoleroux and the QCA herbarium staff, and David Lasso and the ECY staff for help with logistics and needed permitting; Rick Condit, Elizabeth Losos, Robin Foster, and Henrik Balslev for initial encouragement to work within the Yasuní Forest Dynamics Plot; Hugo Romero for initially summarising the YFDP and SSP weather data sets; Pablo Jarrin for setting up the TEAM weather station, and David Lasso and Carlos Padilla for maintaining that equipment and making the data available; and the Ecuadorian Ministerio del Ambiente for permission to work in Yasuní National Park. The Forest Dynamics Plot of Yasuní National Park has been made possible through the generous support of the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE) funds of donaciones del impuesto a la renta, the government of Ecuador, the US National Science Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and the University of Aarhus of Denmark. The project began while NCG was at the Natural History Museum, London, with funding (2000–2004) from the Department of Botany (NHM), the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, British Airways, and the Natural Environment Research Council (GR9/04037). It continued with NCG at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (2005–2021). We thank the Center for Tropical Forest Science for transitional funding (2006–2008, 2017–2018) and the National Science Foundation for long‐term funding (2006–2020; DEB‐0614525, DEB‐1122634, DEB‐1754632, DEB‐1754668).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| British Airways | |
| Center for Tropical Forest Science | |
| Henrik Balslev | |
| University of Aarhus of Denmark | |
| National Science Foundation | DEB-0614525, DEB‐1754668, DEB‐1754632, DEB‐1122634 |
| Andrew W. Mellon Foundation | |
| Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute | |
| Institute for Biospheric Studies, Yale University | |
| Ministerio del Ambiente, Agua y Transición Ecológica | |
| Southern Illinois University Carbondale | |
| Natural Environment Research Council | GR9/04037 |
| Natural History Museum | |
| Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador | |
| Department of Botany, University of Calcutta |
Keywords
- climate change
- flower production
- lowland Amazonian everwet tropical forests
- plant reproduction
- relative humidity
- solar irradiance
- temperature
- western Amazonia
