Baobabs at the edge: 90-year dynamics of climate variability, growth, resilience, and evolutionary legacy effects

Frontiers in Forests and Global Change

Forests and Global Change

Patrick Cole¹  Nisa Karimi²  Victoria Goodall³  Elsie M. Cruywagen⁴  Diana H. Mayne⁵ 

[1] Council for Geoscience, Pretoria, South Africa;Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States;Department of Statistics, Nelson Mandela University, Gqeberha, South Africa;Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI), University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa;Agricultural Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa;School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa;

关键词: climate variability;    growth;    resilience;    topography;    evolutionary legacy effects;   

DOI  :  10.3389/ffgc.2022.1036636

 received in 2022-09-04, accepted in 2022-10-17,  发布年份 2022

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Climate variability and resilience remain gaps in tree research, challenged by the interacting factors in climate change, long-term resilience and the influence of evolutionary legacy effects. In a multidisciplinary approach using 90-year (1930–2020) climate-growth data, we investigated the dynamics of climate variability on growth and resilience of the tropical African baobab (Adansonia digitata) at the range edge in climate-variable, southeast Africa. The main driver of climate variability, ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation), triggered 83% of droughts exacerbated by positive Indian Ocean Dipole (pIOD) events. Growth over 90 years was positively correlated with maximum temperature and increased after the 1976–1977 Global Warming Shift. The influence of warming was compromised by climate variability and extreme events. Although growth is a measure of adaptive capacity, accelerated growth over the past 20 years contrasted with dehydration, canopy dieback and a novel Didymella pathogen. Resilience was contingent on high genetic diversity (polyploidy and heterozygosity) and Neotropical legacy effects of stem water storage and longevity trade-offs of low growth, recruitment and reproduction. The evolution of resprouting in disturbed, fire-prone ecosystems and bark regeneration increased recovery from disturbance. As resource opportunists, baobabs adopted a fast-slow survival strategy. Rainfall and warming enhanced growth while low and variable rainfall favoured a conservative, low growth-higher survival strategy. Low rainfall, climate extremes and topography increased mortality risk. Mortality was higher at lower elevations on site and regionally. Low growth may conserve the baobab in climate warming but the southern hemisphere tropics is one of two identified global hotspots with amplified hot years. The heightened disturbance predicted from increased climate variability, hot droughts and landfalling tropical cyclones magnifies mortality risk for “Africa’s favourite tree.”

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2022 Mayne, Karimi, Cruywagen, Cole and Goodall.

【 图 表 】

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