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Science 6 March 2009:
Vol. 323. no. 5919, pp. 1344 - 1347
DOI: 10.1126/science.1164033
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Reports

Drought Sensitivity of the Amazon Rainforest

Oliver L. Phillips,1* Luiz E. O. C. Aragão,2 Simon L. Lewis,1 Joshua B. Fisher,2 Jon Lloyd,1 Gabriela López-González,1 Yadvinder Malhi,2 Abel Monteagudo,3 Julie Peacock,1 Carlos A. Quesada,1,4 Geertje van der Heijden,1 Samuel Almeida,5 Iêda Amaral,4,6 Luzmila Arroyo,7,8 Gerardo Aymard,9 Tim R. Baker,1 Olaf Bánki,10 Lilian Blanc,11 Damien Bonal,12 Paulo Brando,13,14 Jerome Chave,15 Átila Cristina Alves de Oliveira,4 Nallaret Dávila Cardozo,16 Claudia I. Czimczik,17 Ted R. Feldpausch,1 Maria Aparecida Freitas,5 Emanuel Gloor,1 Niro Higuchi,18 Eliana Jiménez,19 Gareth Lloyd,20 Patrick Meir,21 Casimiro Mendoza,22 Alexandra Morel,2 David A. Neill,8,23 Daniel Nepstad,24,25 Sandra Patiño,1,11 Maria Cristina Peñuela,19 Adriana Prieto,26 Fredy Ramírez,16 Michael Schwarz,1,27 Javier Silva,2 Marcos Silveira,28 Anne Sota Thomas,29 Hans ter Steege,30 Juliana Stropp,30 Rodolfo Vásquez,3 Przemyslaw Zelazowski,2 Esteban Alvarez Dávila,31 Sandy Andelman,6 Ana Andrade,4 Kuo-Jung Chao,1 Terry Erwin,32 Anthony Di Fiore,33 Eurídice Honorio C.,34 Helen Keeling,1 Tim J. Killeen,7 William F. Laurance,4,35 Antonio Peña Cruz,3 Nigel C. A. Pitman,36 Percy Núñez Vargas,37 Hirma Ramírez-Angulo,38 Agustín Rudas,39 Rafael Salamão,5 Natalino Silva,40 John Terborgh,41 Armando Torres-Lezama38

Amazon forests are a key but poorly understood component of the global carbon cycle. If, as anticipated, they dry this century, they might accelerate climate change through carbon losses and changed surface energy balances. We used records from multiple long-term monitoring plots across Amazonia to assess forest responses to the intense 2005 drought, a possible analog of future events. Affected forest lost biomass, reversing a large long-term carbon sink, with the greatest impacts observed where the dry season was unusually intense. Relative to pre-2005 conditions, forest subjected to a 100-millimeter increase in water deficit lost 5.3 megagrams of aboveground biomass of carbon per hectare. The drought had a total biomass carbon impact of 1.2 to 1.6 petagrams (1.2 x 1015 to 1.6 x 1015 grams). Amazon forests therefore appear vulnerable to increasing moisture stress, with the potential for large carbon losses to exert feedback on climate change.

1 Ecology and Global Change, School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
2 Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and Environment, Oxford University, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK.
3 Jardín Botánico de Missouri, Oxapampa, Pasco, Peru.
4 Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas na Amazônia, Av. Andre Araujo, 1753 CP 478, 69060-011 Manaus AM, Brasil.
5 Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Av. Perimetral, 1901 Terra Firme, CEP: 66077-830 Belém PA, Brasil.
6 Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring Network (TEAM), Conservation International, 2011 Crystal Drive, Suite 500, Arlington, VA 22202, USA.
7 Museo de Historia Natural Noel Kempff Mercado, Casilla 2489, Av. Irala 565, Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
8 Missouri Botanical Garden, Box 299, St. Louis, MO 63166, USA.
9 Programa de Ciencias del Agro y del Mar, Herbario Universitario (PORT), Universidad Nacional Experimental de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, Mesa de Cavacas, Portuguesa 3350, Venezuela.
10 Nationaal Herbarium Nederland, W.C. van Unnikgebouw, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS Utrecht, Netherlands.
11 Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD), UMR EcoFoG, Campus Agronomique, BP 709, 97387 Kourou Cedex, French Guiana.
12 Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), UMR EcoFoG, Campus Agronomique, BP 709, 97387 Kourou Cedex, French Guiana.
13 Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia, Avenida Nazaré 669, CEP-66035, Belém PA, Brasil.
14 Department of Botany and School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Florida, P.O. Box 118526, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
15 Laboratoire EDB, Université Paul Sabatier, Bâtiment 4R3, 31062 Toulouse, France.
16 Universidad Nacional de la Amazonía Peruana, Iquitos, Loreto, Perú.
17 Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
18 Departamento de Silvicultura Tropical, Manejo Florestal, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Av. André Araújo, 2936 Petrópolis, Manaus AM, Brasil.
19 Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Kilómetro 2 Via Tarapacá, Leticia, Amazonas, Colombia.
20 National Australia Bank, UB2211, 800 Bourke Street, Docklands, VIC 3008, Australia.
21 School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9XP, UK.
22 FOMABO (Manejo Forestal en las Tierras Tropicales de Bolivia), Sacta, Bolivia.
23 Jatun Sacha Foundation, Casilla 17-12-867, Avenida Rio Coca 1734, Quito, Ecuador.
24 Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, MA 02540, USA.
25 Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, P.O. Box 29910, San Francisco, CA 94129, USA.
26 Instituto Alexander von Humboldt, Claustro de San Agustín, Villa de Leyva, Boyacá, Colombia.
27 Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research, University of Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany.
28 Depto de Ciências da Natureza, Universidade Federal do Acre, Rio Branco AC 69910-900, Brasil.
29 Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture, Humboldt University of Berlin, Phillipstrasse 13, 10557 Berlin, Germany.
30 Institute of Environmental Biology, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Utrecht University, Sorbonnelaan 16, 3584 CA Utrecht, Netherlands.
31 Facultad de Ingeniería Forestal, Universidad del Tolima, 546 Ibagué, Colombia.
32 Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, MRC 187, P.O. Box 37012, Washington, DC 20013, USA.
33 Center for the Study of Human Origins, Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.
34 Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana, Av. José A. Quiñones km. 2.5, Apartado Postal 784, Loreto, Perú.
35 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution, Roosevelt Avenue, Tupper Building 401 Balboa, Ancón, Panamá, República de Panamá.
36 Centro de Investigación y Capacitación del Río de Los Amigos, Madre de Dios, Perú.
37 Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad del Cusco, Av. de la Cultura 733, Cusco, Apartado Postal N° 921, Perú.
38 INDEFOR, Facultad de Ciencias Forestales, Universidad de Los Andes, Mérida, Venezuela.
39 Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Apartado 7495, Bogotá, Colombia.
40 Serviço Florestal Brasileiro, SCEN Trecho 2, Ed. Sede do IBAMA Bloco H, 70.818-900 Brasília DF, Brasil.
41 Center for Tropical Conservation, Duke University, Box 90381, Durham, NC 27708, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: o.phillips{at}leeds.ac.uk; Internet: www.rainfor.org

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