The Impact of a Severe El Niño Event on Vascular Epiphytes in Lowland Panama

Abstract

As climate change leads to increasing temperatures, tropical dry seasons are expected to become more severe. An overall intensification of drought events may strongly affect vascular epiphytes. Especially at the community level, the response of epiphytes to intense drought events is still poorly understood. Therefore, the severe El Niño event of 2015/16 was used to assess the impact of prolonged drought on an epiphyte community on Annona glabra host trees, around Barro Colorado Island. Prior census data from 2002 and 2015 served as a reference for background community dynamics. Net species changes and net population changes at the species level were determined for both periods. While the total abundance of the community almost doubled during the 13 years of the reference period, individual numbers decreased by c. 17% within the year of the El Niño event. Overall, the El Niño event strongly affected the epiphyte community and led to a strong decrease in epiphyte numbers and species. These findings contrast with most previous studies in tropical lowlands that found epiphyte populations to be rather resistant to similarly severe drought events.

Keywords

• Barro Colorado Island
• climate change
• drought
• El Niño
• epiphyte census
• tropical lowlands