Intra-annual tree growth responds to micrometeorological variability in the central amazon

Abstract

Intra-annual distribution of precipitation in central Amazonia leads to a short mild dry season, which is associated with an increase in irradiance and temperature and a decline in relative humidity; however, the independent effect of each individual climatic variable on tree growth is still under investigation. The objective of this study was to determine how tree growth (inferred from radial stem increment) responds to monthly variations of micrometeorological variables in the central Amazon. During five years (2013-2017) we measured tree growth in 51 trees from nine species and, above the forest canopy, col-lected environmental data, such as photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), air temperature (T), precipitation, air relative humidity (RH), air vapor pressure deficit (VPD), reference evapotranspiration (ETo), and soil water content (SWC). We used principal component regression to evaluate the effect of mi-crometeorological variability on tree growth. Mean tree growth across species was responsive to variations in almost all the micrometeorological variables examined, with the exception of mean and minimum temperature, maximum RH, and minimum VPD. Mean tree growth across species increased with in-creasing precipitation, RHmean, RHmin and SWC, while it decreased with increas-ing PAR, Tmax, and ETo. It was also shown that an increase in VPDmean and VPDmax has a negative effect on tree growth. These results contribute to improve our understanding of effect of climate variability on tree growth, and shed light on the potential effect of severe droughts in the central Amazon. © SISEF https://iforest.sisef.org/.