ReviewNature plants2021
Implications of size-dependent tree mortality for tropical forest carbon dynamics.
Review in Nature plants, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 111 citations in OpenAlex.
- Soil fertility controls on tropical forest productivity and mortality: synthesis and roadmap.The New phytologist · 2026Review
- Mechanisms and scales in modeling forest responses to changing disturbance regimes.The New phytologist · 2026Review
- Congo Basin Carbon Cycle Responses to Global Change.Global change biology · 2026Review
- Mapping the density of giant trees in the Amazon.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- Pervasive increase in tree mortality across the Australian continent.Nature plants · 2026Article
- Contrasting pathways to tree longevity in gymnosperms and angiosperms.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Compositional Acclimation Can Lessen Tropical Forest Change in Response to Increasing Lightning Frequency: Insights From Simulation Modeling.Global change biology · 2025Article
- Demography, dynamics and data: building confidence for simulating changes in the world's forests.The New phytologist · 2025Article
- Increasing tree size across Amazonia.Nature plants · 2025Article
- The weak land carbon sink hypothesis.Science advances · 2025Review
- Integrating 3D Canopy Reconstruction to Assess Photosynthetic and Carbon Sequestration Responses of Larch Plantations to Drought Stress.Plant phenomics (Washington, D.C.) · 2025Article
- Storms Are an Important Driver of Change in Tropical Forests.Ecology letters · 2025Article
- Climatic differences among habitats shape the balance between maximum lifespan and life expectancy in Japanese tree species.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Tree size distribution as the stationary limit of an evolutionary master equation.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Vapor-pressure-deficit-controlled temperature response of photosynthesis in tropical trees.Photosynthetica · 2024Article
- Edge effects on tree architecture exacerbate biomass loss of fragmented Amazonian forests.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Physiological mechanisms underlying extreme longevity in mountain pine trees.Plant physiology · 2023Article
- Multiscale predictors of small tree survival across a heterogeneous tropical landscape.PloS one · 2023Article
- Unlocking Drought-Induced Tree Mortality: Physiological Mechanisms to Modeling.Frontiers in plant science · 2022Review
- Linking leaf economic and hydraulic traits with early-age growth performance and survival ofFrontiers in plant science · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Tropical forests are mitigating the ongoing climate crisis by absorbing more atmospheric carbon than they emit. However, widespread increases in tree mortality rates are decreasing the ability of tropical forests to assimilate and store carbon. A relatively small number of large trees dominate the contributions of these forests to the global carbon budget, yet we know remarkably little about how these large trees die. Here, we propose a cohesive and empirically informed framework for understanding and investigating size-dependent drivers of tree mortality. This theory-based framework enables us to posit that abiotic drivers of tree mortality-particularly drought, wind and lightning-regulate tropical forest carbon cycling via their disproportionate effects on large trees. As global change is predicted to increase the pressure from abiotic drivers, the associated deaths of large trees could rapidly and lastingly reduce tropical forest biomass stocks. Focused investigations of large tree death are needed to understand how shifting drivers of mortality are restructuring carbon cycling in tropical forests.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.