Legacy effects of canopy gaps on liana abundance 25 years later in a seasonal tropical evergreen forest in northeastern Thailand

Abstract

The ecology of lianas (woody vines) is important in forest dynamics, especially in seasonal tropical forests, where their diversity and abundance are typically high (Gentry, 1991). In comparison with freestanding trees, lianas can grow rapidly by allocating more carbon to stem elongation and leaf expansion than to mechanical support (Putz, 1983;Schnitzer, 2005). Once reaching the upper canopy, lianas increase shading and weight stress on their hosts, and thus, they impact forest dynamics and carbon balance of the forest stand (Medina-Vega et al., 2022;van der Heijden & Phillips, 2009). Many studies, especially those from Neotropical forests, report that liana