What underpins tree drought responses and how can we predict them?

Convergence in strategies and traits that minimize drought damage and promote recovery has been shown to explain favourable drought responses in trees. Conversely, diversity and variation, in many ways, underpin biological resilience. Biodiversity can be a marker of ecosystem resilience, particularly in the face of climate extremes, and diversity in hydraulic traits has been shown to increase forest resilience to drought. Additionally, high variation in traits, even within individual trees, has been linked to species' drought survival and recovery. In the paper discussed here, Skelton et al. use six tree species from a South-African plant community to assess the power of commonly measured traits and metrics to predict drought responses. They also assess whether there is evidence for species convergence around strategies that promote drought survival and recovery. A natural drought during the experiment provided the ideal opportunity to test whether measured and calculated markers for drought resistance can accurately predict the extent of damage and recovery in the trees residing in this unique drought-prone biome. Here I comment on the results of this paper and interpret them in broader context of tree responses to drought and how we might predict them.