Stronger Hurricanes Triple Tree Mortality and Alter Composition and Biomass Dynamics in a Tropical Forest
Abstract
Tropical cyclones are expected to intensify under a changing climate. By 2100, models predict maximum sustained wind speeds will increase by 6-15% in the North Atlantic basin coupled with increases of 20% in precipitation within 100 Km of the storm center. How this shift will influence tropical forest ecosystems is uncertain. Here we use tree damage and mortality data collected in the same forest in Puerto Rico after Hurricanes Hugo (1989, category 3) and María (2017, category 4) to evaluate the impacts of the two storms on this ecosystem, presaging future hurricane impacts. María killed twice as many trees as Hugo and the number of broken stems tripled for all but one species, the dominant palm, Prestoea acuminata. Considering high delayed mortality rates of broken stems, Hurricane María will likely triple tree mortality rates in this forest relative to Hugo. Tropical cyclone storms select for windstorm resistance and the rapidity of change in disturbance regime may exceed the capacity for change in native forest communities, yielding a depauperate forest dominated by a few resistance species (e.g., P. acuminata). Simulations of forest dynamics using the Ecosystem Demography 2 model corroborate that stronger hurricanes expected under a warming climate will markedly increase palm dominance and alter biomass dynamics, switching the forest from a net carbon sink to a net source.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFM.B51C..05U
- Keywords:
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- 0426 Biosphere/atmosphere interactions;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 0428 Carbon cycling;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 0439 Ecosystems;
- structure and dynamics;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 0468 Natural hazards;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES