Nature Communications (Mar 2019)

Hurricane María tripled stem breaks and doubled tree mortality relative to other major storms

  • María Uriarte,
  • Jill Thompson,
  • Jess K. Zimmerman

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09319-2
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 1
pp. 1 – 7

Abstract

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Given the potential for increasingly common and intense tropical storms, it is important to understand their effects on island forest communities. Here, the authors show that Hurricane María’s strength and rainfall had larger effects on tree mortality than other less severe storms, and that large trees and species with low-density wood were most susceptible.