Conclusion
To avoid lethal leaf temperatures, plants may acclimate their thermal
tolerance, or leaf thermal traits in such a way to enhance leaf cooling.
While emerging evidence suggests plants in warmer environments have
greater capacity to regulate their leaf temperatures (Blasini et al.,
2022; Kitudom et al., 2022), we only found evidence of this across
provenances in one of the four species studied. To understand whether
tropical forests may be vulnerable to climate warming and determine
appropriate seed sourcing strategies for tree-planting we urgently need
more research assessing within-species variation in thermoregulation
across a larger range of species and populations. To achieve this, we
encourage restoration and forestry practitioners and scientists to
engage with each other to establish a greater network of research trials
in the tropics.