Submission by Environmental Defense and the Amazon Institute for Environmental Research (IPAM) to the XXVI Session of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), February 23 2007.
Threshold Responses to Soil Moisture Deficit by Trees and Soil in Tropical Rain Forests: Insights from Field Experiments
Threshold Responses to Soil Moisture Deficit by Trees and Soil in Tropical Rain Forests: Insights from Field Experiments
Many tropical rain forest regions are at risk of increased future drought. The net effects of drought on forest ecosystem functioning will be substantial if important ecological thresholds are passed. However, understanding and predicting these effects is challenging using observational studies alone. Field-based rainfall exclusion (canopy throughfall exclusion; TFE) experiments can offer mechanistic insight into the response to extended or severe drought and can be used to help improve model-based simulations, which are currently inadequate.