Fig. 1: Functional convergence and coordination of leaf drought tolerance across 69 species between wet and dry (sub)tropical forests.

a the pressure-volume (P-V) traits for 35 tree species in wet forests are comparable to 34 tree species in dry forests. Each thin line represents the P-V curve per species plotting the inverse leaf potential (1/ψ_leaf) against relative water content (RWC). b,c trees in the wet and dry forests differ only in turgor loss point (ψ_tlp) (violin plot, Cohen’s d = −0.59, p = 0.02, LMMs, n = 69), while having similarity in other P-V traits like elastic modulus (ɛ_sym) (Cohen’s d = 0.53, p = 0.37). These results were derived using linear mixed model with forest type as a fixed effect and species as a random effect. The significance of the forest type effect was evaluated using a two-sided t-test (Methods). Solid points and lines represent marginal means and their 95% confidence intervals, respectively. d osmotic potential at full turgor (π_o) was positively related with ψ_tlp between dry and wet forests. e,f unlike species from wet forests, those from dry forests showed a weaker coordination between wall elasticity (ε_sym) and osmotic-dependent traits (π_o and ψ_tlp). Separate linear regression models were fitted for wet and dry forest species, respectively (d–f). The resulting regression lines are displayed as solid curves, accompanied by their 95% confidence intervals (shaded areas). Source data are available as a Source Data file.