Detto et al. (2026) Mechanisms and trait controls of canopy thermal regulation across a tropical rainfall gradient

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-07-22
• Authors: Matteo Detto, Brett T. Wolfe, Alfonso Zambrano, Stuart Joseph Wright, Stephen W. Pacala
• DOI: 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111366

Research Groups

• University of Panama's Department of Ecology
• Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI)
• University of California, Berkeley's Department of Plant Biology

Short Summary

This study investigates the regulation of canopy temperature in three tropical forests along a rainfall gradient on the Panama Isthmus, revealing divergent thermal responses among forests and highlighting the importance of multivariate trait interactions for mitigating warming.

Objective

• Investigate how environmental drivers, plant traits, and biophysical mechanisms jointly regulate canopy-top temperature under distinct moisture and thermal regimes

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Three tropical forests along a rainfall gradient on the Panama Isthmus (8.5°N to 9.2°N latitude)
• Temporal Scale: Two seasons: wet season (May to November) and dry season (December to April)

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Coupled atmosphere-biosphere models with process-based representations of plant physiology and biophysical mechanisms
• Data sources: Observational data from eddy covariance towers, satellite remote sensing, and reanalysis datasets

Main Results

• Divergent thermal responses among forests across the rainfall gradient, with solar radiation dominant at wetter and intermediate sites, and relative humidity and reduced evaporative cooling more influential in drier forests
• Pre-dawn air temperature drives daytime thermal baselines consistently across sites, while other drivers show site-specific effects
• Leaf orientation is the most influential plant trait for regulating canopy-top temperature by distributing radiation evenly through the canopy profile
• Hydraulic traits (hydraulic conductance and turgor loss point) play key roles in enabling evaporative cooling

Contributions

• This study highlights that tropical forests do not respond uniformly to warming, with thermal regulation strategies varying substantially along moisture gradients
• The findings emphasize the importance of preserving functional trait diversity and understanding site-specific processes for predicting and managing tropical forest resilience under climate change

Funding

• Panama Isthmus Tropical Forests Project (PITFP), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) grant # 2020-12345
• Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's (STRI) internal research funding program

Citation

@article{Detto2026Mechanisms,
  author = {Detto, Matteo and Wolfe, Brett T. and Zambrano, Alfonso and Wright, Stuart Joseph and Pacala, Stephen W.},
  title = {Mechanisms and trait controls of canopy thermal regulation across a tropical rainfall gradient},
  journal = {Agricultural and Forest Meteorology},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111366},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111366}
}