Remotely sensed resilience of tropical forests

Recent work suggests that episodes of drought and heat can bring forests across climate zones to a threshold for massive tree mortality. As complex systems approach a threshold for collapse they tend to exhibit a loss of resilience, as reflected in declining recovery rates from perturbations. Trees may be no exception, as at the verge of drought-induced death, trees are found to be weakened in multiple ways, affecting their ability to recover from stress.