Tropical Trees Have a Trick to Drought Resistance in the Face of Climate Change: Carbohydrates

It turns out that trees have a way to resist drought--carbohydrates. Scientists have found that how well tropical trees weather dry periods depends on the amount of carbohydrates that they store. The findings have implications for these tropical forests in the fact of climate change.

Water is often the limiting factor for many plants and trees. As temperature warms and weather patterns shift due to climate change, researchers are worried that forest declines may occur in the future. That's why they decided to assess trees' abilities to stand up to drought and what factors might contribute to their survival.

The researchers planted 1,400 saplings of ten different tropical tree species in Malaysia. Then, they increased or decreased the concentration of stores carbohydrates in the saplings and exposed them to an artificial drought period. It soon became clear that the saplings with more carbohydrates were better at surviving.

"The better drought resistance and thus the greater chance of surviving a period of drought evidently depends on the quantity of carbohydrates stored," said Michael O'Brien in a news release.

Yet the ability to store carbohydrates varies within and between species. This means that different trees will display different mortality due to drought conditions. This could, in turn, help scientists paint a picture of what forests might look like in the future, and show which tree species should be of particular concern. It also shows that by planting specie that store more carbohydrates, we can potentially take steps to boost a forest's resistance to drier climates.

The findings are published in the journal Nature Climate Change.