Abstract
Rowland et al. (2015) published recently in Nature a study suggesting that "death from drought in tropical forests is triggered by hydraulics not carbon starvation". We have reanalyzed they data with the objective of placing them in a more global perspective.
Highlights
We aim to place the key findings of Rowland et al (2015) into a more global perspective
The hydraulic safety margin (HSM) of trees can be defined as the difference between the minimum xylem pressure experienced during drought and the pressure causing 50% hydraulic failure
The HSM values reported for the different forest biomes studied worldwide to date have always been positive, suggesting that hydraulic failure occurs only under conditions of extreme water deficit (Delzon and Cochard 2014)
Summary
We aim to place the key findings of Rowland et al (2015) into a more global perspective. The hydraulic safety margin (HSM) of trees can be defined as the difference between the minimum xylem pressure experienced during drought and the pressure causing 50% hydraulic failure. We computed the HSM values from a xylem functional trait database (Choat et al 2012) covering 681 plant species from different sites and forest biomes worldwide.
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