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Tropical forest function is of global significance to climate change responses, and critically determined by water availability patterns. Groundwater is tightly related to soil water through the water table depth (WT), but historically neglected in ecological studies. Shallow WT forests (WT < 5 m) are underrepresented in forest research networks and absent in eddy flux measurements, although they representc. 50% of the Amazon and are expected to respond differently to global‐change‐related droughts. We review WT patterns and consequences for plants, emerging results, and advance a conceptual model integrating environment and trait distributions to predict climate change effects. Shallow WT forests have a distinct species composition, with more resource‐acquisitive and hydrologically vulnerable trees, shorter canopies and lower biomass than deep WT forests. During ‘normal’ climatic years, shallow WT forests have higher mortality and lower productivity than deep WT forests, but during moderate droughts mortality is buffered and productivity increases. However, during severe drought, shallow WT forests may be more sensitive due to shallow roots and drought‐intolerant traits. Our evidence supports the hypothesis of neglected shallow WT forests being resilient to moderate drought, challenging the prevailing view of widespread negative effects of climate change on Amazonian forests that ignores WT gradients, but predicts they could collapse under very strong droughts.

 

Tropical ecosystems are undergoing unprecedented rates of degradation from deforestation, fire, and drought disturbances. The collective effects of these disturbances threaten to shift large portions of tropical ecosystems such as Amazon forests into savanna‐like structure via tree loss, functional changes, and the emergence of fire (savannization). Changes from forest states to a more open savanna‐like structure can affect local microclimates, surface energy fluxes, and biosphere–atmosphere interactions. A predominant type of ecosystem state change is the loss of tree cover and structural complexity in disturbed forest. Although important advances have been made contrasting energy fluxes between historically distinct old‐growth forest and savanna systems, the emergence of secondary forests and savanna‐like ecosystems necessitates a reframing to consider gradients of tree structure that span forest to savanna‐like states at multiple scales. In this Innovative Viewpoint, we draw from the literature on forest–grassland continua to develop a framework to assess the consequences of tropical forest degradation on surface energy fluxes and canopy structure. We illustrate this framework for forest sites with contrasting canopy structure that ranges from simple, open, and savanna‐like to complex and closed, representative of tropical wet forest, within two climatically distinct regions in the Amazon. Using a recently developed rapid field assessment approach, we quantify differences in cover, leaf area vertical profiles, surface roughness, albedo, and energy balance partitioning between adjacent sites and compare canopy structure with adjacent old‐growth forest; more structurally simple forests displayed lower net radiation. To address forest–atmosphere feedback, we also consider the effects of canopy structure change on susceptibility to additional future disturbance. We illustrate a converse transition—recovery in structure following disturbance—measuring forest canopy structure 10 yr after the imposition of a 5‐yr drought in the ground‐breaking Seca Floresta experiment. Our approach strategically enables rapid characterization of surface properties relevant to vegetation models following degradation, and advances links between surface properties and canopy structure variables, increasingly available from remote sensing. Concluding, we hypothesize that understanding surface energy balance and microclimate change across degraded tropical forest states not only reveals critical atmospheric forcing, but also critical local‐scale feedbacks from forest sensitivity to additional climate‐linked disturbance.

 

Abstract Predictions of the magnitude and timing of leaf phenology in Amazonian forests remain highly controversial. Here, we use terrestrial LiDAR surveys every two weeks spanning wet and dry seasons in Central Amazonia to show that plant phenology varies strongly across vertical strata in old-growth forests, but is sensitive to disturbances arising from forest fragmentation. In combination with continuous microclimate measurements, we find that when maximum daily temperatures reached 35 °C in the latter part of the dry season, the upper canopy of large trees in undisturbed forests lost plant material. In contrast, the understory greened up with increased light availability driven by the upper canopy loss, alongside increases in solar radiation, even during periods of drier soil and atmospheric conditions. However, persistently high temperatures in forest edges exacerbated the upper canopy losses of large trees throughout the dry season, whereas the understory in these light-rich environments was less dependent on the altered upper canopy structure. Our findings reveal a strong influence of edge effects on phenological controls in wet forests of Central Amazonia.