1) Whether tropical trees acclimate to long-term drought stress remains unclear. This uncertainty is amplified if drought stress is accompanied by changes in other drivers such as the increases in canopy light exposure that might be induced by tree mortality or other disturbances.

2) Photosynthetic capacity, leaf respiration, non-structural carbohydrate (NSC) storage and stomatal conductance were measured on 162 trees at the world’s longest running (15 yr) tropical forest drought experiment. We test whether surviving trees have altered strategies for carbon storage and carbon use in the drier and elevated light conditions present following drought-related tree mortality.

3) Relative to control trees, the surviving trees experiencing the drought treatment showed functional responses including: i) moderately reduced photosynthetic capacity; ii) increased total leaf NSC; and iii) a switch from starch to soluble sugars as the main store of branch NSC. This contrasts with earlier findings at this experiment of no change in photosynthetic capacity or NSC storage. The changes detected here only occurred in the subset of drought-stressed trees with canopies exposed to high radiation and were absent in trees with less-exposed canopies, and also in the community average. In contrast to previous results acquired through less intensive species sampling from this experiment, we also observe no species-average drought-induced change in leaf respiration.

4) Our results suggest that long-term responses to drought stress are strongly influenced by a tree’s full-canopy light environment and therefore that disturbance-induced changes in stand density and dynamics are likely to substantially impact tropical forest responses to climate change. We also demonstrate that, while challenging, intensive sampling is essential in tropical forests to avoid sampling biases caused by limited taxonomic coverage.

This file contains all of the data for the 163 trees used to create the results for the above paper. We list these trees alongisde their taxonomic identity, size and a series of triats. The file contains the following fields:

Plot: Whether the tree is located on the control or experimental plot (TFE)

Tree Code: Tree number on the plot

Genus: Tree genus

Species: Tree species

DBH..Cm.: Tree diameter at breast height (cm)

Tree light score: The canopy light index assigned to each tree

Min. gs: Minimum stomatal conductance (mol m-2 s-1)

Max.gs: Maximum stomatal conductance (mol m-2 s-1)

vm25: Maximum carboxylation rate corrected to 25⁰C (micromols m-2 s-1)

jm25: Maximum rate of electron transport corrected to 25⁰C (micromols m-2 s-1)

rd25: Dark respiration rate corrected to 25⁰C (micromols m-2 s-1)

Sucrose_branch: Sucrose branch content (%)

Starch_branch: Starch branch content (%)

Total_NSC_branch: Total branch non-structural carbohydrate content (%)

Sucrose_leaf: Sucrose leaf content (%)

Starch_leaf: Starch leaf content (%)

Total_NSC_leaf: Total leaf non-structural carbohydrate content (%)

leaf_n: Leaf Nitrogen content (g m-2)

leaf_P: Leaf Phosphorus content (g m-2)

LMA: Leaf mass per area (g m-2)

Light category: Whether the tree light score translates into a high or low light category