Consistency of demographic trade‐offs across 13 (sub)tropical forests

Kambach, Stephan; Condit, Richard; Aguilar, Salomón; Bruelheide, Helge; Bunyavejchewin, Sarayudh; Chang‐Yang, Chia‐Hao; Chen, Yu‐Yun; Chuyong, George B.; Davies, Stuart J.; Ediriweera, Sisira; Ewango, Corneille E. N.; Fernando, Edwino S.; Gunatilleke, Nimal; Gunatilleke, Savitri; Hubbell, Stephen P.; Itoh, Akira; Kenfack, David; Kiratiprayoon, Somboon; Lin, Yiching; Makana, Jean-Remy; Mohamad, Mohizah; Pongpattananurak, Nantachai; Pérez, Rolando; Rodriguez, Lillian Jennifer; Sun, I‐Fang; Tan, Sylvester; Thomas, Duncan W.; Thompson, Jill; Uriarte, María; Valencia, Renato; Wirth, Christian; Wright, S. Joseph; Wu, Shuhui; Yamakura, Takuo; Leong, Yao Tze; Zimmerman, Jess K.; Rüger, Nadja

doi:10.1111/1365-2745.13901

Cited by 15 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 56 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In disagreement with our expectation, our results showed that tree growth rate was neither related to mortality nor recruitment rate (Figure 1a,b). These findings are inconsistent with those of previous studies focusing on undisturbed forests (Gilbert et al, 2006;Kambach et al, 2022;Poorter & Bongers, 2006;Poorter et al, 2008). Our study site is a typical monsoon forest.…”

Section: Demographic Relationships Across Speciescontrasting

confidence: 99%

How do functional traits influence tree demographic properties in a subtropical monsoon forest?

Lian

et al. 2022

Functional Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

1. Functional traits are good predictors of plant responses and adaptations to ever-changing environments. However, forecasting forest community dynamics is challenging because the relationships among different tree demographic properties (growth, mortality and recruitment) and how functional traits are associated with tree demography remain largely unknown.2. Here, in a 20-ha subtropical forest permanent plot, we quantified the rates of tree growth, mortality and recruitment across 53 dominant tree species (diameter at breast height; DBH ≥ 1 cm) from 2005 to 2020. Functional traits that are closely related to plant photosynthesis, nutrients, hydraulics and drought tolerance were measured.3. We found that tree growth rate (GR) varied independently from rates of tree mortality and recruitment. Hydraulic conductivity was positively correlated with GR (explaining 27% variation-the strongest relationship observed) whereas wood density was negatively correlated with GR. Leaf life span was negatively related to tree mortality. Species with high carbon assimilation rate, nutrient concentration and hydraulic conductivity had high recruitment rates. Leaf turgor loss point was unrelated to plant demography. Principal component analysis revealed that species with quick resource acquisition rates had high rates of growth and recruitment. 4. Our results illustrate that the correlations among tree demographic properties were weak in this subtropical forest with monsoonal climate. Most notably, against expectations, there was no observed trade-off between growth and mortality. Individual functional traits explained up to 27% of each demographic rate.

show abstract

Section: Demographic Relationships Across Speciescontrasting

confidence: 99%

How do functional traits influence tree demographic properties in a subtropical monsoon forest?

Lian

et al. 2022

Functional Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The RF models support wood density and tree species stature as important demographic indicators [43,52,134,136,155], as they are the most important species traits other than species origin. Differing here from past work is that these inventory data span dry to cloud forests, deep alluvial to shallow karst or serpentine soil substrates and a range of land-use histories, regional events and introduced species, all within the same species pool (excepting introduced species).…”

Section: Tree Species Stature Wood Density and Species Originmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…Mortality rates are important to evaluating forest roles in Earth systems, climate change vulnerability, restoration success and sustainable management, and to understanding tree species coexistence [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. A challenge, though, is that tree mortality predictions are highly uncertain, in part because the type, severity and frequency of disturbance, and more stable features like gradients in long-term climate, topography and soils, can all affect mortality [1,8,11,34,[38][39][40][41][42][43].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Adding uncertainty to predicting tree mortality is that in many tropical regions hundreds or more tree species coexist and vary in traits, habitat preferences and species interactions [17,44,45]. Tree mortality rates are generally higher for more resource acquisitive species, or for trees within a stand that are smaller or damaged [19,25,40,[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53]. Examples are early successional species, which tend to be shade intolerant and grow fast.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Multiscale predictors of small tree survival across a heterogeneous tropical landscape

Helmer

Kay²,

Marcano‐Vega³

et al. 2023

PLoS ONE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Uncertainties about controls on tree mortality make forest responses to land-use and climate change difficult to predict. We tracked biomass of tree functional groups in tropical forest inventories across Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and with random forests we ranked 86 potential predictors of small tree survival (young or mature stems 2.5–12.6 cm diameter at breast height). Forests span dry to cloud forests, range in age, geology and past land use and experienced severe drought and storms. When excluding species as a predictor, top predictors are tree crown ratio and height, two to three species traits and stand to regional factors reflecting local disturbance and the system state (widespread recovery, drought, hurricanes). Native species, and species with denser wood, taller maximum height, or medium typical height survive longer, but short trees and species survive hurricanes better. Trees survive longer in older stands and with less disturbed canopies, harsher geoclimates (dry, edaphically dry, e.g., serpentine substrates, and highest-elevation cloud forest), or in intervals removed from hurricanes. Satellite image phenology and bands, even from past decades, are top predictors, being sensitive to vegetation type and disturbance. Covariation between stand-level species traits and geoclimate, disturbance and neighboring species types may explain why most neighbor variables, including introduced vs. native species, had low or no importance, despite univariate correlations with survival. As forests recovered from a hurricane in 1998 and earlier deforestation, small trees of introduced species, which on average have lighter wood, died at twice the rate of natives. After hurricanes in 2017, the total biomass of trees ≥12.7 cm dbh of the introduced species Spathodea campanulata spiked, suggesting that more frequent hurricanes might perpetuate this light-wooded species commonness. If hurricane recovery favors light-wooded species while drought favors others, climate change influences on forest composition and ecosystem services may depend on the frequency and severity of extreme climate events.

show abstract

“…In order to persist in the forest, the pioneers must have a reproductive advantage, ie by producing more seedlings and saplings during their reproductive life than long-lived species do. Rüger et al (2018Rüger et al ( , 2020 and Kambach et al (2022) pursued this possibility by including recruitment rate at the 1 cm size in analyses of demographic axes. This leads to the suggestion that there are species below the growth-mortality axis of Figure 1 that persist in the forest by recruiting well (Rüger et al 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demographic variation and demographic niches of trees species in the Barro Colorado Forest

Condit

Rüger

2022

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One goal for the 50-ha plot on Barro Colorado Island since its inception has been to understand demographic variability across the entire community of tree species. Early papers classified demographic response of many species to canopy gaps, culminating over the last decade with improved statistical methods that could quantify the response of growth, survival, and recruitment rates to increasing light for the entire community. We compile results from recent studies to illustrate the demographic trade-off between fast growth in high light and long life in deep shade. Growth and recruitment in high light are significantly correlated with mortality across species, and this trade-off is the primary demographic differentiation in the community. Here we add a new analysis of expected adult lifespan of 31 dominant canopy species spanning the growth-mortality axis. Using analytical solutions to matrices describing the lifetable, we demonstrate that the trade-off between high growth and long lifespan is not equalizing. The expected adult lifespan of a newly-recruited sapling is shorter in fast-growing pioneers than in long-lived shade-tolerant species: elevated growth rates of pioneers is insufficient to overcome their high death rates. If reproductive output were equal across the demographic axis, pioneer species could not persist. This suggests pioneers out-reproduce shade-tolerant species. The next goal is incorporating seed and seedling production into the demographic analysis to test the trade-off using lifetables having reproductive output included.

show abstract

Consistency of demographic trade‐offs across 13 (sub)tropical forests

Abstract: 1. Organisms of all species must balance their allocation to growth, survival and recruitment. Among tree species, evolution has resulted in different life-history strategies for partitioning resources to these key demographic processes.

Cited by 15 publications

References 56 publications

How do functional traits influence tree demographic properties in a subtropical monsoon forest?

How do functional traits influence tree demographic properties in a subtropical monsoon forest?

Multiscale predictors of small tree survival across a heterogeneous tropical landscape

Demographic variation and demographic niches of trees species in the Barro Colorado Forest

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About