The Vulnerability and Resilience of Tropical Forests Under Extreme Climate Change

Dear Colleagues,

Human activities are a decisive change engine defining the Anthropocene throughout the natural landscapes of the Earth system and, with positive feedback inputs for Earth’s ecosystems, they are a driving force that pressures the biosphere to respond to rising temperatures as a function of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. The latest science exposes alterations in the functional properties of forests within minimum and maximum ranges across decisive latitudinal, topographic, hydrological, and thermal gradients in the functional space. Diverse life story strategies in old-growth and secondary forests experiencing stress and/or water excesses under higher temperature anomalies could now be functioning at the extreme thresholds of tolerance. Nevertheless, they function as vital attenuators with significant potential to mitigate the effects of climate change, including fire, degradation, deforestation, and fragmentation under the influence of extreme events. With this definition of the context, this Special Issue on the Vulnerability and Resilience of Tropical Forests Under Extreme Climate Change dives into the sensitivity and resistance of biodiversity in tropical forests to the presence of extreme climate events.

This Special Issue on the Vulnerability and Resilience of Tropical Forests Under Extreme Climate Change adheres to the definitions of terms in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (v 1.5) glossary. Put another way, the vulnerability of forest systems is related to the propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected, as it encompasses a variety of concepts and elements including sensitivity or susceptibility to harm and a lack of capacity to cope and adapt. On the other hand, resilience is the capacity of forest systems to cope with a hazardous event or trend or disturbance, responding or reorganizing in ways that maintains a forest’s essential function, identity, and structure; therefore, maintaining its capacity for adaptation, learning, and transformation. This Special Issue aims to access questions such as: (QI) Which functional groups and species are most sensitive to/or best attenuate fire- and drought-induced disturbances, edge conditions, and biotic effects in continuous and/or fragmented landscapes? (QII) When, where, and how do guilds and ecological and functional types interact and why do they matter in secondary and primary succession processes, connectivity, preservation, conservation, and the restoration of continuous and/or fragmented landscapes in the context of extreme events?

Lastly, studies covering taxa from well-defined kingdoms to incertae sedis are very welcome in this Special Issue. Although the main focus is not on artificial systems, we will consider individual studies that use artificial taxa with well-founded prospects and perspectives for applications in non-artificial tropical ecosystems. Therefore, we invite and encourage the scientific community to provide newer insights via empirical, experimental, and theoretical studies, from case-studies to metanalyses, with well-founded discussions that shed light on the scientific advances in and the challenges of understanding the vulnerability and resilience of biodiversity in secondary and old-growth tropical forests systems under the extreme events of a warming planet.

Dr. Wendeson Castro
Dr. Marcos Silveira
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• ecology
• alternative stable state
• forest system dieback
• functional redundancy
• hydraulic properties
• water/thermal stress dynamics
• facilitation
• competition (intensity and importance)
• intermediate disturbance hypothesis
• biodiversity