Plant hydraulic modelling of leaf and canopy fuel moisture content reveals increasing vulnerability of a Mediterranean forest to wildfires under extreme drought

Fuel moisture content (FMC) is a crucial driver of forest fires in many regions world‐wide. Yet, the dynamics of FMC in forest canopies as well as their physiological and environmental determinants remain poorly understood, especially under extreme drought. We embedded a FMC module in the trait‐base...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The New phytologist Vol. 237; no. 4; pp. 1256 - 1269
Main Authors: Ruffault, Julien, Limousin, Jean‐Marc, Pimont, François, Dupuy, Jean‐Luc, De Càceres, Miquel, Cochard, Hervé, Mouillot, Florent, Blackman, Chris J., Torres‐Ruiz, José M., Parsons, Russell A., Moreno, Myriam, Delzon, Sylvain, Jansen, Steven, Olioso, Albert, Choat, Brendan, Martin‐StPaul, Nicolas
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.02.2023
Wiley
Subjects:
Canopies
Canopy
Cavitation
climate
Drought
Droughts
Dynamics
Environmental Sciences
Extreme drought
Foliage
Forest fires
Forests
fuel moisture index
Fuels
fuels (fire ecology)
Leaf area
Leaf area index
leaf water potential
Leaves
Moisture content
Moisture effects
Mortality
Osmotic potential
osmotic pressure
plant available water
Plant cover
Plant Leaves - physiology
Plants (botany)
Quercus ilex
Soil moisture
Soil water
Transpiration
Trees - physiology
Turgor
Vulnerability
Water - physiology
Water content
Water potential
Water use
Wildfires
forest flammability
live fuel moisture content
tree mortality
plant hydraulics
drought
wildfire
process-based modelling
climate change
rought
climate changed
ISSN:0028-646X, 1469-8137, 1469-8137
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Fuel moisture content (FMC) is a crucial driver of forest fires in many regions world‐wide. Yet, the dynamics of FMC in forest canopies as well as their physiological and environmental determinants remain poorly understood, especially under extreme drought. We embedded a FMC module in the trait‐based, plant‐hydraulic SurEau‐Ecos model to provide innovative process‐based predictions of leaf live fuel moisture content (LFMC) and canopy fuel moisture content (CFMC) based on leaf water potential (). SurEau‐Ecos‐FMC relies on pressure–volume ( p‐v ) curves to simulate LFMC and vulnerability curves to cavitation to simulate foliage mortality. SurEau‐Ecos‐FMC accurately reproduced and LFMC dynamics as well as the occurrence of foliage mortality in a Mediterranean Quercus ilex forest. Several traits related to water use (leaf area index, available soil water, and transpiration regulation), vulnerability to cavitation, and p‐v curves (full turgor osmotic potential) had the greatest influence on LFMC and CFMC dynamics. As the climate gets drier, our results showed that drought‐induced foliage mortality is expected to increase, thereby significantly decreasing CFMC. Our results represent an important advance in our capacity to understand and predict the sensitivity of forests to wildfires.
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ISSN:0028-646X
1469-8137
1469-8137
DOI:10.1111/nph.18614