JCU’s Associate Professor Susan Laurance has led the Daintree Drought experiment since 2015, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Edinburgh and Imperial College in the UK.
The project involves using plastic sheets to reduce the rainfall getting into a half hectare of rainforest, artificially creating an extended and drier dry season.
The results have recently been published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.
One of the species even started to show blockages in their water conducting vessels and we also found thinner leaves in some," she said.
Dr Tng said it showed that mature rainforest trees can modify their anatomy to some degree as an adaptation to drought.
He said it was an important finding, given their place in the environment.
So a forest of trees is very important in maintaining the local climate."
Dr Laurance said it seemed likely tropical rainforests in many part of the world would be facing more frequent or more severe droughts due to climate change.
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