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Summary Lightning strikes kill hundreds of millions of trees annually, but their role in shaping tree life history and diversity is largely unknown.Here, we use data from a unique lightning location system to show that some individual trees counterintuitively benefit from being struck by lightning.Lightning killed 56% of 93 directly struck trees and caused an average of 41% crown dieback among the survivors. However, among these struck trees, 10 direct strikes caused negligible damage toDipteryx oleiferatrees while killing 78% of their lianas and 2.1 Mg of competitor tree biomass. Nine trees of other long‐lived taxa survived lightning with similar benefits. On average, aD. oleiferatree > 60 cm in diameter is struck by lightning at least five times during its lifetime, conferring these benefits repeatedly. We estimate that the ability to survive lightning increases lifetime fecundity 14‐fold, largely because of reduced competition from lianas and neighboring trees. Moreover, the unusual heights and wide crowns ofD. oleiferaincrease the probability of a direct strike by 49–68% relative to trees of the same diameter with average allometries.These patterns suggest that lightning plays an underappreciated role in tree competition, life history strategies, and species coexistence. 

Abstract Field measurements demonstrate a carbon sink in the Amazon and Congo basins, but the cause of this sink is uncertain. One possibility is that forest landscapes are experiencing transient recovery from previous disturbance. Attributing the carbon sink to transient recovery or other processes is challenging because we do not understand the sensitivity of conventional remote sensing methods to changes in aboveground carbon density (ACD) caused by disturbance events. Here we use ultra-high-density drone lidar to quantify the impact of a blowdown disturbance on ACD in a lowland rain forest in Costa Rica. We show that the blowdown decreased ACD by at least 17.6%, increased the number of canopy gaps, and altered the gap size-frequency distribution. Analyses of a canopy-height transition matrix indicate departure from steady-state conditions. This event will initiate a transient sink requiring an estimated 24–49 years to recover pre-disturbance ACD. Our results suggest that blowdowns of this magnitude and extent can remain undetected by conventional satellite optical imagery but are likely to alter ACD decades after they occur.