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Abstract Cyclonic storms, or hurricanes, are expected to intensify as ocean heat energy rises due to climate change. Ecological theory suggests that tropical forest resistance to hurricanes should increase with forest age and wood density. However, most data on hurricane effects on tropical forests come from a limited number of well‐studied long‐term monitoring sites, restricting our capacity to evaluate the resistance of tropical forests to hurricanes across broad environmental gradients.In this study, we assessed whether forest age and aridity mediate the effects of hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico, Vieques and Culebra islands. We leveraged functional trait data for 410 tree species, remotely sensed measurements of canopy height and cover, along with data on forest stand characteristics of 180 of 338 forest monitoring plots, each covering an area of 0.067 ha. The plots represent a broad mean annual precipitation (MAP) gradient from 701 to 4598 mm and a complex mosaic of forest age from 5 to around 85 years since deforestation.Hurricanes resulted in a 25% increase in basal area mortality rates, a 45% decrease in canopy height and a 21% reduction in canopy cover. These effects intensified with forest age, even after considering proximity to the hurricane path. The links between forest age and hurricane disturbances were likely due the prevalence of tall canopies.Tall forest canopies were strongly linked with low community‐weighted wood density (WD). These characteristics were on average more common in moist and wet forests (MAP >1250 mm). Conversely, dry forests were dominated by short species with high wood density (WD > 0.6 g cm−3) and did not show significant increases in basal area mortality rates after the hurricanes.Synthesis. Our findings show that selection towards drought‐tolerant traits across aridity gradients, such as short stature and dense wood, enhances resistance to hurricanes. However, forest age modulated responses to hurricanes, with older forests being less resistant across the islands. This evidence highlights the importance of considering the intricate links between ecological succession and plant function when forecasting tropical forests’ responses to increasingly strong hurricanes.
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Effects of topography on tropical forest structure depend on climate context
Abstract Topography affects abiotic conditions which can influence the structure, function and dynamics of ecological communities. An increasing number of studies have demonstrated biological consequences of fine‐scale topographic heterogeneity but we have a limited understanding of how these effects depend on the climate context.We merged high‐resolution (1 m2) data on topography and canopy height derived from airborne lidar with ground‐based data from 15 forest plots in Puerto Rico distributed along a precipitation gradient spanningc. 800–3,500 mm/year. Ground‐based data included species composition, estimated above‐ground biomass (AGB), and two key functional traits (wood density and leaf mass per area, LMA) that reflect resource‐use strategies and a trade‐off between hydraulic safety and hydraulic efficiency. We used hierarchical Bayesian models to evaluate how the interaction between topography × climate is related to metrics of forest structure (i.e. canopy height and AGB), as well as taxonomic and functional alpha‐ and beta‐diversity.Fine‐scale topography (characterized with the topographic wetness index, TWI) significantly affected forest structure and the strength (and in some cases direction) of these effects varied across the precipitation gradient. In all plots, canopy height increased with topographic wetness but the effect was much stronger in dry compared to wet forest plots. In dry forest plots, topographically wetter microsites also had higher levels of AGB but in wet forest plots, topographically drier microsites had higher AGB.Fine‐scale topography influenced functional composition but had only weak or non‐significant effects on taxonomic and functional alpha‐ and beta‐diversity. For instance, community‐weighted wood density followed a similar pattern to AGB across plots. We also found a marginally significant association between variation of wood density and topographic heterogeneity that depended on climate context.Synthesis. The effects of fine‐scale topographic heterogeneity on tropical forest structure and composition depend on the climate context. Our study demonstrates how a stronger integration of topographic heterogeneity across precipitation gradients could improve estimates of forest structure and biomass, and may provide insight to the ways that topography might mediate species responses to drought and climate change.
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- PAR ID:
- 10375484
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Ecology
- Volume:
- 108
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0022-0477
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 145-159
- Size(s):
- p. 145-159
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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