The First Five Years in the Reorganization of Aboveground Biomass and Nutrient Use Following Hurricane Hugo in the Bisley Experimental Watersheds, Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico

Scatena, F. N.; Moya, Samuel; Estrada, Carlos R.; Chinea, J. Danilo

doi:10.2307/2389086

Cited by 184 publications

(137 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…It is important to note that the woody plant community response recorded within the trim treatments in the CTE mirror the community responses to natural hurricane disturbance monitored elsewhere at our site (e.g., Walker et al, 1991, Scatena et al, 1996Zimmerman et al, 2010), difficulties of scale, replication, and background variability aside. Therefore, one can have confidence that interpretations of the responses of other functional variables and organismal groups to canopy trimming are similar to that of natural hurricanes (McDowell, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

“…The increased nutrient concentrations in litter likely reflect, in part, the high recruitment of pioneers into the recovering forest canopy and the high nutrient content of their litterfall. Thus, even though it is not clear which pioneer species might have responded to the trim treatments, it is clear that as a guild of species they strongly influence this key ecosystem variable, ensuring high levels of nutrient return to the forest floor during the period when the forest canopy is recovering (Scatena et al, 1996). In this way pioneers may facilitate establishment and growth of late successional plants (Callaway and Walker 1997) as they clearly do on landslide scars in the LEF (Walker et al 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many past studies describe the impacts of tropical cyclones on regional forests (Walker et al, 1991(Walker et al, , 1996Stone and Finkl, 1995;Burslem and Whitmore, 1999;Turton, 2008;Webb et al, 2014), and those in the Caribbean emphasize the resilience of forests to even the most severe hurricanes (Scatena et al, 1996;Vandermeer et al 2000;Tanner and Bellingham, 2006;Imbert and Portecop, 2008;McGroddy et al, 2013). While such rapid tree recovery is largely a result of species adaptations to severe wind disturbance (Zimmerman et al, 1994;Bellingham et al, 1995;Brokaw et al, 2004), a mechanistic understanding of the tree responses during the first decade following hurricane disturbance is lacking.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Seven-year responses of trees to experimental hurricane effects in a tropical rainforest, Puerto Rico

Zimmerman

Hogan

Shiels

et al. 2014

Forest Ecology and Management

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a b s t r a c tWe experimentally manipulated key components of severe hurricane disturbance, canopy openness and detritus deposition, to determine the independent and interactive effects of these components on tree recruitment, forest structure, and diversity in a wet tropical forest in the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico. Canopy openness was increased by trimming branches, and we manipulated debris by adding or subtracting the trimmed materials to the trimming treatments, in a 2 Â 2 factorial design replicated in three blocks. Tree (stems P1 cm diameter at breast height) responses were measured during the 9-year study, which included at least 1 year of pre-manipulation monitoring. When the canopy was trimmed, stem densities increased >2-fold and rates of recruitment increased >25-fold. Deposition of canopy debris did not markedly affect stem densities but did have small yet significant effects on tree basal area. Basal area increased about 10% when debris was added to plots with intact canopies; the other treatments exhibited smaller or no increases in basal area over time. Much of the dynamics of stem densities were due to changes in the smallest size class (1-2.5 cm diameter), which responded with a pulse of recruitment in the canopy trimmed treatments, and a steady loss in plots with intact canopies. The decreases in stem densities in the plots with intact canopies is attributed to observed on-going forest thinning from the last natural severe hurricane disturbance in 1998. Given these repeated hurricane effects, our study enabled an experimental test of the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis (IDH), for which we predicted an increase in species diversity in canopy trimmed treatments and a loss of species in the treatments with intact canopies. Measured patterns of diversity gave partial support to the predictions of IDH, although raw species richness of sampled plots fit the predictions better than richness adjusted for differences in stem densities among treatments. Ordination of species responses in the community identified a guild of pioneer species responding to the trimmed treatments, but not the debris additions, amongst substantial background variation in species composition unrelated to the experimental treatments. These results are consistent with a growing consensus that, while trade-offs of resilience and resistance govern many species responses to hurricane disturbance, other environmental and historical factors are equally or more important in governing community dynamics in hurricane-disturbed forests.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Seven-year responses of trees to experimental hurricane effects in a tropical rainforest, Puerto Rico

Zimmerman

Hogan

Shiels

et al. 2014

Forest Ecology and Management

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“…After Hurricane Hugo crossed Puerto Rico in September 1989, it took 60 months for the total litterfall (fallen leaves and fine wood) to return to the pre-hurricane level in a tabonuco forest of the Bisley Experimental Watersheds [49]. After Hurricane George defoliated the tabonuco forest in Puerto Rico in September 1998, total forest floor mass and fallen leaves continually decreased to below pre-hurricane levels during the first year [50].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of Soil Labile Organic Carbon to a Simulated Hurricane Disturbance in a Tropical Wet Forest

Liu

XiuCheng

Zou

et al. 2018

Forests

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Abstract:Hurricanes are an important disturbance in the tropics that can alter forest ecosystem properties and processes. To understand the immediate influence of hurricane disturbance on carbon cycling, we examined soil labile organic carbon (LOC) in a Canopy Trimming Experiment (CTE) located in the Luquillo Experimental Forest of Puerto Rico. We trimmed tree canopy and deposited debris (CTDD) on the forest ground of the treatment plots in December 2014, and collected floor mass samples and 0-10 cm soil samples three weeks before the treatment, as well as at scheduled intervals for 120 weeks after the treatment. Within the first week following the CTDD treatment, the mean soil microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and soil LOC in the CTDD plots were significantly greater than in the control plots (soil MBC: 2.56 g/kg versus 1.98 g/kg, soil LOC: 9.16 g/kg versus 6.44 g/kg, respectively), and the mean turnover rates of soil LOC in the CTDD plots were significantly faster than in the control plots. The measured indices fluctuated temporally more in the CTDD plots than in the control plots, especially between the 12th and 84th week after the CTDD treatment. The treatment effect on soil LOC and its turnover rate gradually disappeared after the 84th week following the treatment, while higher levels of soil MBC in the CTDD plots than in the control plots remained high, even at the 120th week. Our data suggest that hurricane disturbance can accelerate the cycling of soil LOC on a short temporal scale of less than two years, but might have a longer lasting effect on soil MBC in a tropical wet forest.

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“…Studies of animals in terrestrial ecosystems following major hurricanes have largely focused on birds (Askins and Ewert, 1991;Lynch, 1991;Waide, 1991;Wunderle et al, 1992;Wunderle, 1996;Freeman et al, 2008), bats (Gannon and Willig, 1994;Grant et al, 1997), lizards (Reagan, 1991), frogs (Woolbright, 1991;Vilella and Fogarty, 2005), and invertebrates (Willig and Camilo, 1991;Schowalter, 1994;Schowalter and Ganio, 1999). Microbial responses to hurricanes (Lodge and Cantrell, 1995;Willig et al, 1996;Vargas et al, 2010) are not well studied relative to plants and animals, yet several studies have documented ecosystem processes that in part involve microbes after these storms, such as decomposition (Herbert et al, 1999;Sullivan et al, 1999;Ostertag et al, 2003), greenhouse gas flux (Erickson and Ayala, 2004), and changes in terrestrial nutrient status (Blood et al, 1991;Lodge et al, 1991;McDowell et al, 1996;Scatena et al, 1996;Silver et al, 1996;Herbert et al, 1999;Xu et al, 2004;Heartsill Scalley et al, 2010). Recent interest in hurricane effects to tropical forests has also stemmed from models that predict an increased frequency and/or intensity of these storms associated with global climate change (Emmanuel, 2005;Nyberg et al, 2007;Bender et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the key mechanisms of tropical forest responses to canopy loss and biomass deposition from experimental hurricane effects

Shiels¹,

González

2014

Forest Ecology and Management

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a b s t r a c tTo date, it is not clear which are the factors that most influence tropical forest recovery from hurricanes. Increased canopy openness and increased detritus (debris) deposition are two of the most likely factors, but due to their simultaneous occurrence during a hurricane, their relative effects cannot be separated without a manipulative experiment. Hence, in the Luquillo Experimental Forest (LEF) of Puerto Rico, the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Program (LTER) has undertaken experimental manipulations in replicated 30 Â 30 m plots to simulate the major effects of hurricane disturbance-increased canopy openness and debris addition to the forest floor. Using a factorial experiment enabled investigation of the separate and combined effects of canopy opening and debris on this wet tropical forest; the experimental outcomes may help direct forest management decisions in similar disturbance-prone environments. In this first article of the special issue, we (1) provide details of the design and methodology for this manipulative experiment (the Canopy Trimming Experiment, CTE), (2) report some principal abiotic responses to treatments, and (3) introduce the subject areas of the 12 additional CTE manuscripts in this special issue. The physical conditions created by canopy and understory treatment and the amounts of debris added to CTE plots were similar to the LEF's conditions following Hurricane Hugo (a category 4 storm) in 1989; although more wood and a 37% (1.5 cm) deeper litter layer was present in the CTE. Our selective cutting and removal of the forest canopy above 3 m, which included trimming 234 palm trees and 342 non-palm trees, greatly altered the understory micro-environment by increasing light levels and decreasing litter moisture for 18 months; throughfall and soil moisture were elevated in trim plots for 3 months. In plots where the canopy was trimmed and the debris (6 kg m À2) was added to the forest floor, the canopy debris persisted on the forest floor for at least 4 years; debris decomposed more quickly in plots with intact canopies. The diverse collection of papers in this special issue provide mechanistic understandings of response patterns of tropical forest biota (microbes, plants, animals) and processes (decomposition, herbivory, nutrient cycling, primary production) to canopy and understory disturbance that resembles a major (Pcategory 3) hurricane. Although measurements for this experiment are ongoing to further identify the mechanisms of long-term forest change resulting from hurricanes, we include findings up to the first seven years post-treatment at this time.Published by Elsevier B.V.

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The First Five Years in the Reorganization of Aboveground Biomass and Nutrient Use Following Hurricane Hugo in the Bisley Experimental Watersheds, Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico

Cited by 184 publications

References 22 publications

Seven-year responses of trees to experimental hurricane effects in a tropical rainforest, Puerto Rico

Seven-year responses of trees to experimental hurricane effects in a tropical rainforest, Puerto Rico

Responses of Soil Labile Organic Carbon to a Simulated Hurricane Disturbance in a Tropical Wet Forest

Understanding the key mechanisms of tropical forest responses to canopy loss and biomass deposition from experimental hurricane effects

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