From fields to forests: how young tropical forests adapt to global change

Increasingly, tropical forests are regrowing after land abandonment, but they now do so under hotter, drier climates and in more open, agricultural landscapes. These changing conditions affect how young forests recover and how well they function. In this PhD research, I studied how young tropical forests adapt to drought during the early stages of regrowth, and what this means for their functioning.
By combining measurements of tree functional traits, forest composition, and forest growth across dry and wet forest regions during the first decade of forest development, this thesis shows that drier climates and more open landscapes favor species and communities that are better adapted to drought stress. While these forests are more drought tolerant, they also grow more slowly, revealing an important trade-off between drought adaptation and productivity.
These findings provide practical guidance for forest restoration, for example by helping to select tree species that balance drought tolerance and growth depending on environmental context and restoration goals.