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Contributed by Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe, September 1, 2015 (sent for review May 18, 2015; reviewed by Manesh Sankaran)
Significance
Savannas account for 20% of global land area and support 30% of terrestrial net primary production. The biome is characterized by the coexistence of trees and grasses. Tree abundance strongly influences savanna ecosystem dynamics. Maximum tree abundance in tropical savannas is found to be negatively correlated with rainfall intensity, which remains unexplained. Through combining in situ observations, a biophysical tree–grass competition model, and a stochastic rainfall generator, we present that differentiated tree and grass water use strategies are essential to explain the phenomenon. Our findings show the importance of vegetation physiology in determining tree abundance in the biome and enhance our ability to predict future ecosystem composition and dynamics under global change.
Abstract
Tree abundance in tropical savannas exhibits large and unexplained spatial variability. Here, we propose that differentiated tree and grass water use strategies can explain the observed negative relation between maximum tree abundance and rainfall intensity (defined as the characteristic rainfall depth on rainy days), and we present a biophysical tree–grass competition model to test this idea. The model is founded on a premise that has been well established in empirical studies, namely, that the relative growth rate of grasses is much higher compared with trees in wet conditions but that grasses are more susceptible to water stress and lose biomass more quickly in dry conditions. The model is coupled with a stochastic rainfall generator and then calibrated and tested using field observations from several African savanna sites. We show that the observed negative relation between maximum tree abundance and rainfall intensity can be explained only when differentiated water use strategies are accounted for. Numerical experiments reveal that this effect is more significant than the effect of root niche separation. Our results emphasize the importance of vegetation physiology in determining the responses of tree abundance to climate variations in tropical savannas and suggest that projected increases in rainfall intensity may lead to an increase in grass in this biome.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: xiangtao{at}princeton.edu or irodrigu{at}princeton.edu.
Author contributions: X.X., D.M., and I.R.-I. designed research; X.X. performed research; X.X. analyzed data; and X.X., D.M., and I.R.-I. wrote the paper.
Reviewers included: M.S., University of Leeds.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1517382112/-/DCSupplemental.
Rainfall intensity and savanna tree abundance
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