Research published in Science and featuring University of Exeter co-authors finds that tropical forests across the Americas are not adapting quickly enough to keep pace with the rate of climate change. Tree communities are shifting in composition — gaining drought-tolerant species and losing moisture-dependent ones — but the pace of change lags behind warming and drying trends by decades.
The study used long-term monitoring data from hundreds of forest plots, including plots in the southern Amazon monitored as part of work connected to the Amazon PyroCarbon project. The results suggest that without rapid emissions reductions, tropical forests face increasing risk of structural degradation and carbon loss.
Read the full University of Exeter press release: Tropical forests in the Americas are struggling to keep pace with climate change
Paper: Aguirre-Gutiérrez, J., Díaz, S., Rifai, S. W. et al. (2025). Tropical forests in the Americas are changing too slowly to track climate change. Science, 387(6738). doi: 10.1126/science.adl5414