Embolism resistance drives the distribution of Amazonian rainforest tree species along hydro-topographic gradients

What is it about?

The Amazon is heterogeneous climatically and floristically on large spatial scales. However, at local spatial scale, topography creates a mosaic of habitats differently affected by water table. Using recent advances in plant hydraulics, we measured a drought vulnerability index, xylem vulnerability to embolism, and assembled the largest dataset so far for a single tropical rainforest. Our results show that valley trees are more drought-vulnerable than plateau trees and lowland conditions led to repeated evolution of more drought-vulnerable species. Our findings have important implications for understanding Amazon forest resilience

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