title: Convergence of bark investment according to fire and climate structures ecosystem vulnerability to future change.
abstract: Fire regimes in savannas and forests are changing over much of the world. Anticipating the impact of these changes requires understanding how plants are adapted to fire. In this study, we test whether fire imposes a broad selective force on a key fire-tolerance trait, bark thickness, across 572 tree species distributed worldwide. We show that investment in thick bark is a pervasive adaptation in frequently burned areas across savannas and forests in both temperate and tropical regions where surface fires occur. Geographic variability in bark thickness is largely explained by annual burned area and precipitation seasonality. Combining environmental and species distribution data allowed us to assess vulnerability to future climate and fire conditions: tropical rainforests are especially vulnerable, whereas seasonal forests and savannas are more robust. The strong link between fire and bark thickness provides an avenue for assessing the vulnerability of tree communities to fire and demands inclusion in global models.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Adam F A
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0418-4129
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Pellegrini
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.|Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
authors.forename: William R L
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Anderegg
authors.affiliation: Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK.
authors.forename: C E Timothy
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Paine
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.
authors.forename: William A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Hoffmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.|The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Tyler
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kartzinel
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Sam S
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4095-1129
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Rabin
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Natural Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway.
authors.forename: Douglas
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sheil
authors.affiliation: Department of Botany, Universidade de Brasília, DF, Brazil.
authors.forename: Augusto C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Franco
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Stephen W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Pacala
mesh_terms: D002980:Climate; D057231:Climate Change; D005390:Fires; D065928:Forests; D065948:Grassland; D024301:Plant Bark / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D013045:Species Specificity; D014197:Trees / Q000033:anatomy & histology*
keywords: Bark thickness; fire ecology; forest; functional traits; global change; savanna