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Prolonged drought can kill trees, slow growth and change which species dominate a tropical forest. Because trees create the canopy, food, nesting sites and microclimates used by many organisms, those changes can cascade through biodiversity. The direction and size of the effect are not uniform: drought intensity and duration, heat, fire, soils, water tables, forest type and land-use pressure all influence the outcome.
What happens to a tropical forest during a prolonged drought?
Drought begins as a water-availability problem. With less water in the soil, trees have more difficulty moving water to leaves and maintaining the physiological processes that support photosynthesis and growth. A short dry spell may be survived by closing leaf pores, reducing growth or drawing on deeper water. A prolonged or severe drought can push some trees past those limits, increasing branch dieback and whole-tree mortality.
The first visible effects are therefore often physiological: reduced growth, wilting, canopy thinning and higher mortality. The ecological consequence is broader than the loss of individual trees. If mortality is selective, the surviving stand contains a different mixture of species, sizes and functional traits. Openings in the canopy alter light, humidity and temperature near the forest floor, changing the conditions for seedlings, vines, epiphytes, fungi and animals.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes with high confidence that climate change is altering tropical tree community structure and species composition. Its tropical-forests assessment summarizes the central risk this way: “Drought-related mortality of tropical trees shows complex patterns which could change forest community structure and composition with cascading effects on biodiversity.”
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Tropical forests cover about 45% of the world’s forested area, according to the IPCC, and contain a large share of terrestrial biomass and biodiversity. A change affecting even one forest region can therefore matter locally and contribute to wider changes in carbon storage and habitat.
How drought changes biodiversity, step by step
1. Water stress changes growth and survival
Reduced soil moisture constrains growth before it necessarily kills a tree. Trees may produce fewer leaves, stems or seeds, and seedlings may fail to establish. During a severe event, hydraulic failure, carbon depletion or damage associated with heat can raise mortality. The balance depends on species traits, rooting depth, access to groundwater and the timing of rainfall.
2. Selective mortality reshapes the community
Species do not respond identically. If drought kills a higher share of one group, the relative abundance of other groups rises even when those survivors have not increased in number. A canopy formerly dominated by several large, moisture-demanding species may become more open and contain a greater share of drought-tolerant trees. This is a compositional change, not simply a reduction in total tree count.
3. Canopy loss changes habitat and resources
Dead or defoliated trees change the amount of light reaching lower layers, the temperature and humidity of the understory, and the quantity and timing of flowers, fruits and leaves. Fallen wood creates habitat for decomposers and some animals while removing living canopy space. These pathways make cascading effects on biodiversity plausible, but they do not imply that every bird, mammal, insect, fungus or microbe will respond in the same way.
4. Regeneration may favor a different forest
Seedlings establish under the conditions left by the drought. A larger canopy opening can help light-demanding pioneers while disadvantaging shade-tolerant seedlings. If drought repeatedly coincides with fire or further drying, regeneration can be interrupted and the forest may move toward a different structure. The evidence summarized here is strongest for trees, forest structure and ecosystem function; taxon-specific outcomes require separate data.
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Which trees are most vulnerable?
Vulnerability is uneven, and no single list of doomed species applies to every tropical forest.
- Large trees: Several drought studies report higher mortality among larger individuals. Their size can increase water transport demands and the amount of tissue exposed to hydraulic stress, although local conditions still determine the result.
- Softwood and pioneer types: Some extreme-drought studies identify softwood or pioneer trees as more vulnerable. These categories often include fast-growing species that invest less in dense wood, but the pattern is not universal.
- Evergreen species: Evergreen trees can remain physiologically active through dry periods and may be vulnerable when water stress is intense or prolonged. Their response depends on rooting depth, leaf traits and access to stored or deep water.
- Fast-growing, low-wood-density pioneers during hot drought: A recent Amazon study highlights this combination under intense drought accompanied by high heat. It should be read as a context-specific result, not a rule for every pioneer species or every drought.
Traits can also confer an advantage. Deep roots, conservative water use, drought-deciduous leaves or access to water held in particular soil layers may improve survival at one site. The same trait can be less useful where the water table is shallow, soils are compacted or drought is accompanied by fire.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsWhy tropical forests do not all respond alike
“Tropical forest” includes moist forests, seasonally dry forests and sites with very different soils and topography. A drought of the same duration can produce different water stress in a deep, well-drained soil than in a shallow soil above a fluctuating water table.
The IPCC describes cases in which drought-tolerant species gain an advantage, while other rooting strategies or traits become vulnerable when water availability changes. Local climate, elevation, slope position and access to groundwater can all modify exposure. Forest history matters too: a fragmented or previously logged stand may have hotter edges and fewer mature trees than an intact interior before a drought begins.
Comparisons should therefore specify at least five dimensions:
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| Dimension | Questions to ask | Why it changes the interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Drought exposure | How long and how severe was the dry period? Was it experimental rainfall exclusion or a naturally occurring hot drought? | Rainfall exclusion isolates soil-moisture effects; natural hot drought also includes atmospheric heat and high vapor-pressure deficit. |
| Forest setting | Is the site moist or seasonally dry? What are the soil, water-table and topographic conditions? | These factors control how much water remains available to roots. |
| Biological response | Were mortality, growth, regeneration, species composition or functional traits measured? | A mortality result does not by itself establish a change in animal or fungal diversity. |
| Co-occurring pressures | Were heat, fire, fragmentation or deforestation present? | Observed change may reflect interacting pressures rather than drought alone. |
| Time horizon | Was the study tracking days and seasons, or decades of community change? | Short-term stress and long-term structural adjustment can look different. |
What the long-running Caxiuanã experiment shows
The Caxiuanã precipitation-exclusion experiment in the eastern Amazon has been maintained for more than 20 years at a one-hectare scale. Researchers excluded rainfall from part of the forest to reduce soil moisture and observe how the ecosystem responds over time.
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During the first 15 years, mortality was elevated in the treatment area. This demonstrates that sustained soil-moisture reduction can impose a substantial cost on a mature tropical forest, rather than merely slowing growth for a season.
Later phase: structural and eco-hydrological adjustment
After the early losses, the remaining forest changed structurally. Rifai and colleagues’ 2025 account describes a later condition in which surviving trees no longer showed the same drought-stress indicators as before. The ecosystem reached a form of eco-hydrological stability under the experimental regime.
What stability does—and does not—mean
Stability did not mean that the original community was preserved or that drought had no cost. Biomass and wood-carbon accumulation were reduced. A forest can therefore maintain relatively stable water-use behavior after vulnerable trees die while storing less carbon and having a different species and size structure. The Caxiuanã result is evidence of adjustment with trade-offs, not proof that tropical forests are unaffected by prolonged drought.
The experiment also has clear limits. It represents one eastern Amazon site, uses manipulated soil moisture and does not reproduce every feature of a natural hot drought. Atmospheric heat, vapor-pressure deficit, fire and regional fragmentation can add stresses that a rainfall-exclusion treatment does not capture.
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How heat, fire and land use amplify drought effects
Drought rarely acts alone. Warming increases evaporative demand, so trees can experience severe water stress even when rainfall totals do not reach the lowest historical values. The IPCC links prolonged drought and warming with greater fire danger in tropical forests.
Fire can kill trees directly, damage surviving trunks and simplify forest structure. Repeated burns may favor fire-tolerant or open-habitat species over shade-loving forest specialists. Fragmentation creates hotter, drier edges and can make a drought’s effects more severe than they would be in a continuous interior forest. Deforestation removes habitat at the same time that drought reduces the ability of the remaining stand to provide it.
For this reason, attributing every biodiversity change to drought alone can be misleading. A credible interpretation records whether heat, fire, logging, edge exposure or other disturbances occurred during the same period.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Can tropical forests recover after a long drought?
Recovery is possible, but “recovery” can mean several different things. A forest may regain leaf cover while still having fewer large trees. Tree numbers may stabilize while species composition remains altered. Biomass may take longer to rebuild than canopy appearance, and the return of an original community is not guaranteed.
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Short term
Immediately after drought, surviving trees may resume growth if rainfall returns and roots remain functional. Dead trees continue to influence light, fuel loads and habitat as they fall and decompose. Seedling establishment depends on the post-drought combination of moisture, heat and light.
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Medium term
Species that survived the drought can become more common through continued growth and recruitment. Openings may also favor pioneers, producing a structurally different canopy. If another drought arrives before biomass and seed sources recover, losses can compound.
Long term
Long-term adjustment depends on the frequency of drought, the availability of surviving seed trees, fire history and landscape connectivity. Caxiuanã shows that an ecosystem can develop new structural and water-use stability, but its reduced biomass and wood-carbon accumulation show why stability should not be equated with restoration to the former state.
What the carbon-sink projection does—and does not—tell us
The IPCC reports a projected decline in the pan-tropical forest carbon sink from a peak of 1.26 petagrams of carbon per year in the 1990s to 0.29 petagrams per year in the 2030s, summarizing Hubau and colleagues’ 2020 work. This is a projection about the rate at which forests absorb carbon, not a direct measurement of species loss or biodiversity decline.
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It is relevant because reduced growth and higher mortality can lower net carbon uptake, but carbon accounting cannot substitute for surveys of species composition, regeneration or animal communities. A forest might retain substantial carbon while losing particular habitats, and a change in carbon uptake does not identify which species are affected.
How to interpret a drought-biodiversity claim
When reading a study or report, check the following before generalizing:
- Identify whether the evidence concerns trees, another taxon or an entire ecosystem.
- Separate mortality from growth, regeneration and changes in relative abundance.
- Record the drought’s duration, severity and whether heat or fire accompanied it.
- Check the forest type, soil and water-table setting.
- Distinguish a one-site experiment from a regional synthesis.
- Note the time scale: a physiological response over months is not the same as community adjustment over decades.
- Ask whether “recovery” means leaf cover, biomass, carbon uptake, species composition or the return of particular habitats.
The best-supported general statement is that prolonged drought can reorganize tropical tree communities and create cascading biodiversity effects, while the exact winners, losers and recovery pathway depend on context. Direct claims about tropical birds, mammals, insects, fungi or microbes should remain qualified unless taxon-specific evidence is available.
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