El Niño and Amazon plant mortality

Researchers examine the impact of the 2015-2016 El Niño on Amazonian plant mortality. The Amazon has been experiencing increased droughts and forest fires. However, the combined impacts of droughts and fires on Amazonian plant mortality and subsequent carbon dioxide emissions are unclear, especially in forests with a history of human disturbances. Erika Berenguer and colleagues examined the Amazonian epicenter of the 2015-2016 El Niño. The authors analyzed plant mortality and carbon loss before, during, and after the El Niño, using data from 21 forest plots across Eastern Amazonia in Brazil. The plots experienced either increased drought severity or both increased drought severity and forest fires as a result of the El Niño. Compared with trees in undisturbed areas, trees situated in forests with a history of human disturbance were more likely to die because of forest fires. Plant mortality following the El Niño remained higher than pre-El Niño mortality levels for at least 3 years. The authors estimated at least 495 teragrams of carbon dioxide emissions attributable to the mortality of approximately 2.5 billion plants resulting from the El Niño. Three years following the start of El Niño, plant growth had offset only 37% of the emissions. The findings suggest that regional droughts and forest fires may affect the global carbon balance, according to the authors.

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Article #20-19377: “Tracking the impacts of El Niño drought and fire in human-modified Amazonian forests,” by Erika Berenguer et al.

MEDIA CONTACTS: Erika Berenguer, University of Oxford and Lancaster University, UNITED KINGDOM; tel: +44-7805514916; email: <

[email protected]

>; Jos Barlow, Lancaster University, UNITED KINGDOM; email: <

[email protected]

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