Quantifying vulnerability to embolism in tropical trees and lianas using five methods: can discrepancies be explained by xylem structural traits?

What is it about?

Xylem embolism resistance are one of the important traits determining plant drought resistance, which has profound implications in explaining massive drought-induced plant deaths under current climate change scenarios. However, there are hot debates on how to accurately determine the xylem embolism resistance due to great discrepancies amongst techniques. We tested the reliability of five commonly used techniques in tropical trees and lianas with contrasting vessel-length ranges. Our findings show the VC parameters strongly rely on the techniques that how VCs are constructed even using identical materials. We also provided evidence to account for the underlying artifacts for some techniques. We suggest one should be cautious when applying VC parameters to explain drought‐induced tree mortality or to model forest dynamics in future climate change scenarios.

Featured Image