Drought

Vegetation can respond to drought through different mechanisms, including changes in the plants’ structure and physiology. By analyzing state-of-the-art satellite-derived datasets with explainable machine learning methods, an international team around Wantong Li and René Orth showed that the vegetation’s physiology in many ecosystems has deviated from its structure under drought on a global scale. more

A new study shows that future ecosystem functioning will increasingly depend on water availability. Using recent simulations from climate models, an international team of scientists found several “hot spot regions” where increasing water limitation strongly affects ecosystems. These include Central Europe, the Amazon, and western Russia. more

International researchers found a pattern of extreme climate conditions leading to forest dieback. To do this, the team had collected worldwide records of climate-related tree and forest dieback events over the past nearly five decades. This allowed the researchers to derive a combination of extreme climate conditions in which trees die: drought coupled with heat, in precisely defined extreme conditions. more

Researchers are using Biosphere 2 to study how H2O, CO2 and VOCs flow through drought-stressed plants and soils in the largest labeling experiment to date. The study results can help make forests more resilient and climate models more accurate. more

Rainforests are being lost through deforestation and land use. This reduces their resilience to climate change and makes them more vulnerable to droughts and wildfires. A new early warning system responds to the different conditions of rainforests.  more