Resolving plant functional biodiversity to quantify forest drought resistance in the Amazon

Glenn Hammond, Ohio Supercomputer Center

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It is well established that the Amazon Basin region is critical to global energy, water, and carbon cycles. The increased frequency and severity of drought events in the region highlight the vulnerability of tropical forests to heat- and drought-induced stress. Despite a number of previous and ongoing studies, the full effects of drought and the essential factors controlling rainforest response are not resolved and thus remain a significant source of uncertainty for land surface models. Leveraging advances in trait-based modeling, this study presents an opportunity to examine the contributions of species-specific strategies to individual and community drought resilience and decrease uncertainties in the current suite of land surface models.