No abstract

Climate change is causing warming of the oceans and atmosphere (Sutton et al., 2007), which is linked to increased intensity of severe weather events, like tropical cyclones. These storms damage forests through defoliation and uprooting or snapping trees. These disturbances alter long-term forest structure by decreasing the number of large trees and consequently overall canopy density (Gilliam et al., 2006;Mascaro et al., 2005). This leads to alterations in ecosystem functions by lowering photosynthetic capacity (Barr et al., 2012) and in many cases reducing net ecosystem exchange of carbon (NEE;Xi et al., 2019). Unlike other non-stand replacing disturbances in southern forests, such as insect infestations or prescribed fire, hurricane force winds tend to down and snap trees translocating biomass to the forest floor in a short period of time, causing stronger pulses of respiration from the sudden decaying wood (Yamanoi et al., 2015). The magnitude of change caused by a tropical cyclone is dependent on multiple factors, such as storm strength, ecosystem susceptibility, and conditions following the storm (Hogan et al., 2020). Ecological memory from previous disturbances can also have a significant role in forest response and recovery (Hogan et al., 2020). High-frequency tropical cyclones can lead to a forested stand with a shorter and more heterogeneous canopy (Quine et al., 2021;Xi et al., 2019); high wind events can also