Tree height explains mortality risk during an intense drought.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Stovall AEL
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6763443 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Tree height explains mortality risk during an intense drought.
Stovall Atticus E L AEL Shugart Herman H Yang Xi X
Nature communications 20190926 1
Forest mortality is accelerating due to climate change and the largest trees may be at the greatest risk, threatening critical ecological, economic, and social benefits. Here, we combine high-resolution airborne LiDAR and optical data to track tree-level mortality rates for ~2 million trees in California over 8 years, showing that tree height is the strongest predictor of mortality during extreme drought. Large trees die at twice the rate of small trees and environmental gradients of temperature ...[more]
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