Data from: Hydraulic vulnerability of tropical forests is largely independent of water availability

Tropical rainforest woody plants have been thought to have uniformly low
resistance to hydraulic failure and to function near the edge of their
hydraulic safety margin, making these ecosystems vulnerable to drought;
however, this may not be the case. Using data collected at 30 tropical
forest sites for three key traits associated with drought tolerance, we
show that site-level hydraulic diversity of leaf turgor loss point,
resistance to embolism (P50), and hydraulic safety margins (HSMs) is high
across tropical forests and largely independent of water availability.
Species with high HSMs (>1 MPa) and low P50 values (<-2 MPa)
are common across the wet and dry tropics. This high site-level hydraulic
diversity, largely decoupled from water stress, could influence which
species are favored and become dominant under a drying climate. High
hydraulic diversity could also make these ecosystems more resilient to
variable rainfall regimes.