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Umaña MN, Needham J, Forero-Montaña J, Nytch CJ, Swenson NG, Thompson J, Uriarte M, Zimmerman JK. Demographic trade-offs and functional shifts in a hurricane-impacted tropical forest. Ann Bot 2023; 131:1051-1060. [PMID: 36702550 PMCID: PMC10457028 DOI: 10.1093/aob/mcad004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2022] [Accepted: 01/20/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIMS Understanding shifts in the demographic and functional composition of forests after major natural disturbances has become increasingly relevant given the accelerating rates of climate change and elevated frequency of natural disturbances. Although plant demographic strategies are often described across a slow-fast continuum, severe and frequent disturbance events influencing demographic processes may alter the demographic trade-offs and the functional composition of forests. We examined demographic trade-offs and the shifts in functional traits in a hurricane-disturbed forest using long-term data from the Luquillo Forest Dynamics Plot (LFPD) in Puerto Rico. METHODS We analysed information on growth, survival, seed rain and seedling recruitment for 30 woody species in the LFDP. In addition, we compiled data on leaf, seed and wood functional traits that capture the main ecological strategies for plants. We used this information to identify the main axes of demographic variation for this forest community and evaluate shifts in community-weighted means for traits from 2000 to 2016. KEY RESULTS The previously identified growth-survival trade-off was not observed. Instead, we identified a fecundity-growth trade-off and an axis representing seedling-to-adult survival. Both axes formed dimensions independent of resprouting ability. Also, changes in tree species composition during the post-hurricane period reflected a directional shift from seedling and tree communities dominated by acquisitive towards conservative leaf economics traits and large seed mass. Wood specific gravity, however, did not show significant directional changes over time. CONCLUSIONS Our study demonstrates that tree demographic strategies coping with frequent storms and hurricane disturbances deviate from strategies typically observed in undisturbed forests, yet the shifts in functional composition still conform to the expected changes from acquisitive to conservative resource-uptake strategies expected over succession. In the face of increased rates of natural and anthropogenic disturbance in tropical regions, our results anticipate shifts in species demographic trade-offs and different functional dimensions.
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Affiliation(s)
- María Natalia Umaña
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48103, USA
| | - Jessica Needham
- Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | | | - Christopher J Nytch
- Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, PR 00936, USA
| | - Nathan G Swenson
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN 46556, USA
| | - Jill Thompson
- UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Bush Estate, Penicuik, Midlothian EH26 0QB, UK
| | - María Uriarte
- Department of Ecology, Evolution & Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
| | - Jess K Zimmerman
- Department of Biology, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, PR 00931, USA
- Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, PR 00936, USA
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2
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Zuleta D, Arellano G, McMahon SM, Aguilar S, Bunyavejchewin S, Castaño N, Chang-Yang CH, Duque A, Mitre D, Nasardin M, Pérez R, Sun IF, Yao TL, Valencia R, Krishna Moorthy SM, Verbeeck H, Davies SJ. Damage to living trees contributes to almost half of the biomass losses in tropical forests. Glob Chang Biol 2023; 29:3409-3420. [PMID: 36938951 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16687] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2023] [Accepted: 02/11/2023] [Indexed: 05/16/2023]
Abstract
Accurate estimates of forest biomass stocks and fluxes are needed to quantify global carbon budgets and assess the response of forests to climate change. However, most forest inventories consider tree mortality as the only aboveground biomass (AGB) loss without accounting for losses via damage to living trees: branchfall, trunk breakage, and wood decay. Here, we use ~151,000 annual records of tree survival and structural completeness to compare AGB loss via damage to living trees to total AGB loss (mortality + damage) in seven tropical forests widely distributed across environmental conditions. We find that 42% (3.62 Mg ha-1 year-1 ; 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.36-5.25) of total AGB loss (8.72 Mg ha-1 year-1 ; CI 5.57-12.86) is due to damage to living trees. Total AGB loss was highly variable among forests, but these differences were mainly caused by site variability in damage-related AGB losses rather than by mortality-related AGB losses. We show that conventional forest inventories overestimate stand-level AGB stocks by 4% (1%-17% range across forests) because assume structurally complete trees, underestimate total AGB loss by 29% (6%-57% range across forests) due to overlooked damage-related AGB losses, and overestimate AGB loss via mortality by 22% (7%-80% range across forests) because of the assumption that trees are undamaged before dying. Our results indicate that forest carbon fluxes are higher than previously thought. Damage on living trees is an underappreciated component of the forest carbon cycle that is likely to become even more important as the frequency and severity of forest disturbances increase.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Zuleta
- Forest Global Earth Observatory, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
| | - Gabriel Arellano
- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
- Oikobit LLC, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
| | - Sean M McMahon
- Forest Global Earth Observatory, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
- Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, Maryland, 21037, USA
| | - Salomón Aguilar
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, República de Panamá
| | - Sarayudh Bunyavejchewin
- Department of National Parks, Forest Research Office, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, Bangkok, 10900, Thailand
| | - Nicolas Castaño
- Herbario Amazónico Colombiano, Instituto Amazónico de Investigaciones Científicas Sinchi, Bogotá, Colombia
| | - Chia-Hao Chang-Yang
- Department of Biological Sciences, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, 80424, Taiwan
| | - Alvaro Duque
- Departamento de Ciencias Forestales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín, Medellín, Colombia
| | - David Mitre
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, República de Panamá
| | - Musalmah Nasardin
- Forestry and Environment Division, Forest Research Institute Malaysia, 52109, Kepong, Selangor, Malaysia
| | - Rolando Pérez
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, República de Panamá
| | - I-Fang Sun
- Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Ecology and Sustainability, National Dong Hwa University, Hualien, 94701, Taiwan
| | - Tze Leong Yao
- Forestry and Environment Division, Forest Research Institute Malaysia, 52109, Kepong, Selangor, Malaysia
| | - Renato Valencia
- Escuela de Ciencias Biológicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador
| | - Sruthi M Krishna Moorthy
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA
- Department of Environment, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Hans Verbeeck
- Department of Environment, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Stuart J Davies
- Forest Global Earth Observatory, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
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3
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Helmer EH, Kay S, Marcano-Vega H, Powers JS, Wood TE, Zhu X, Gwenzi D, Ruzycki TS. Multiscale predictors of small tree survival across a heterogeneous tropical landscape. PLoS One 2023; 18:e0280322. [PMID: 36920898 PMCID: PMC10016699 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0280322] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/07/2022] [Accepted: 12/27/2022] [Indexed: 03/16/2023] Open
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eileen H. Helmer
- USDA Forest Service, International Institute of Tropical Forestry, Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, United States of America
- * E-mail:
| | - Shannon Kay
- USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station Fort Collins, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States of America
| | - Humfredo Marcano-Vega
- USDA Forest Service, International Institute of Tropical Forestry, Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, United States of America
- USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Asheville, NC, United States of America
| | - Jennifer S. Powers
- Departments of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior and Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, United States of America
| | - Tana E. Wood
- USDA Forest Service, International Institute of Tropical Forestry, Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, United States of America
| | - Xiaolin Zhu
- Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong
| | - David Gwenzi
- Department of Environmental Science & Management, Cal Poly Humboldt State University, Arcata, California, United States of America
| | - Thomas S. Ruzycki
- Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States of America
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Russo SE, Ledder G, Muller EB, Nisbet RM. Dynamic Energy Budget models: fertile ground for understanding resource allocation in plants in a changing world. Conserv Physiol 2022; 10:coac061. [PMID: 36128259 PMCID: PMC9477497 DOI: 10.1093/conphys/coac061] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2022] [Revised: 06/08/2022] [Accepted: 08/17/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Climate change is having dramatic effects on the diversity and distribution of species. Many of these effects are mediated by how an organism's physiological patterns of resource allocation translate into fitness through effects on growth, survival and reproduction. Empirically, resource allocation is challenging to measure directly and so has often been approached using mathematical models, such as Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) models. The fact that all plants require a very similar set of exogenous resources, namely light, water and nutrients, integrates well with the DEB framework in which a small number of variables and processes linked through pathways represent an organism's state as it changes through time. Most DEB theory has been developed in reference to animals and microorganisms. However, terrestrial vascular plants differ from these organisms in fundamental ways that make resource allocation, and the trade-offs and feedbacks arising from it, particularly fundamental to their life histories, but also challenging to represent using existing DEB theory. Here, we describe key features of the anatomy, morphology, physiology, biochemistry, and ecology of terrestrial vascular plants that should be considered in the development of a generic DEB model for plants. We then describe possible approaches to doing so using existing DEB theory and point out features that may require significant development for DEB theory to accommodate them. We end by presenting a generic DEB model for plants that accounts for many of these key features and describing gaps that would need to be addressed for DEB theory to predict the responses of plants to climate change. DEB models offer a powerful and generalizable framework for modelling resource allocation in terrestrial vascular plants, and our review contributes a framework for expansion and development of DEB theory to address how plants respond to anthropogenic change.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sabrina E Russo
- Corresponding author: School of Biological Sciences, 1104 T Street, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0118, USA.
| | - Glenn Ledder
- Department of Mathematics, University of Nebraska, 203 Avery Hall, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0130, USA
| | - Erik B Muller
- Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
- Institut für Biologische Analytik und Consulting IBACON GmbH, Arheilger Weg 17 Roß dorf, Hesse D-64380, Germany
| | - Roger M Nisbet
- Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
- Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
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Needham JF, Arellano G, Davies SJ, Fisher RA, Hammer V, Knox RG, Mitre D, Muller-Landau HC, Zuleta D, Koven CD. Tree crown damage and its effects on forest carbon cycling in a tropical forest. Glob Chang Biol 2022; 28:5560-5574. [PMID: 35748712 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16318] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2022] [Accepted: 05/27/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Crown damage can account for over 23% of canopy biomass turnover in tropical forests and is a strong predictor of tree mortality; yet, it is not typically represented in vegetation models. We incorporate crown damage into the Functionally Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator (FATES), to evaluate how lags between damage and tree recovery or death alter demographic rates and patterns of carbon turnover. We represent crown damage as a reduction in a tree's crown area and leaf and branch biomass, and allow associated variation in the ratio of aboveground to belowground plant tissue. We compare simulations with crown damage to simulations with equivalent instant increases in mortality and benchmark results against data from Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama. In FATES, crown damage causes decreases in growth rates that match observations from BCI. Crown damage leads to increases in carbon starvation mortality in FATES, but only in configurations with high root respiration and decreases in carbon storage following damage. Crown damage also alters competitive dynamics, as plant functional types that can recover from crown damage outcompete those that cannot. This is a first exploration of the trade-off between the additional complexity of the novel crown damage module and improved predictive capabilities. At BCI, a tropical forest that does not experience high levels of disturbance, both the crown damage simulations and simulations with equivalent increases in mortality does a reasonable job of capturing observations. The crown damage module provides functionality for exploring dynamics in forests with more extreme disturbances such as cyclones and for capturing the synergistic effects of disturbances that overlap in space and time.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jessica F Needham
- Earth and Environmental Sciences Area, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA
| | - Gabriel Arellano
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
- Oikobit LLC, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
| | - Stuart J Davies
- Forest Global Earth Observatory, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
| | - Rosie A Fisher
- CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Oslo, Norway
| | - Valerie Hammer
- University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
| | - Ryan G Knox
- Earth and Environmental Sciences Area, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA
| | - David Mitre
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado, Repu ́blica de Panamá
| | | | - Daniel Zuleta
- Forest Global Earth Observatory, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
| | - Charlie D Koven
- Earth and Environmental Sciences Area, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA
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6
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Affiliation(s)
- Kenneth J Feeley
- Department of Biology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, USA.
| | - Daniel Zuleta
- Forest Global Earth Observatory, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Washington, DC, USA
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7
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Bauman D, Fortunel C, Delhaye G, Malhi Y, Cernusak LA, Bentley LP, Rifai SW, Aguirre-Gutiérrez J, Menor IO, Phillips OL, McNellis BE, Bradford M, Laurance SGW, Hutchinson MF, Dempsey R, Santos-Andrade PE, Ninantay-Rivera HR, Chambi Paucar JR, McMahon SM. Tropical tree mortality has increased with rising atmospheric water stress. Nature 2022. [PMID: 35585230 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04737-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2021] [Accepted: 04/06/2022] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
Evidence exists that tree mortality is accelerating in some regions of the tropics1,2, with profound consequences for the future of the tropical carbon sink and the global anthropogenic carbon budget left to limit peak global warming below 2 °C. However, the mechanisms that may be driving such mortality changes and whether particular species are especially vulnerable remain unclear3-8. Here we analyse a 49-year record of tree dynamics from 24 old-growth forest plots encompassing a broad climatic gradient across the Australian moist tropics and find that annual tree mortality risk has, on average, doubled across all plots and species over the last 35 years, indicating a potential halving in life expectancy and carbon residence time. Associated losses in biomass were not offset by gains from growth and recruitment. Plots in less moist local climates presented higher average mortality risk, but local mean climate did not predict the pace of temporal increase in mortality risk. Species varied in the trajectories of their mortality risk, with the highest average risk found nearer to the upper end of the atmospheric vapour pressure deficit niches of species. A long-term increase in vapour pressure deficit was evident across the region, suggesting that thresholds involving atmospheric water stress, driven by global warming, may be a primary cause of increasing tree mortality in moist tropical forests.
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8
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Zambrano J, Arellano G, Swenson NG, Staniczenko PPA, Thompson J, Fagan WF. Analyses of three-dimensional species associations reveal departures from neutrality in a tropical forest. Ecology 2022; 103:e3681. [PMID: 35315513 DOI: 10.1002/ecy.3681] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/30/2021] [Revised: 12/01/2021] [Accepted: 01/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
The study of community spatial structure is central to understanding diversity patterns over space and species co-occurrence at local scales. While most analytical approaches consider horizontal and vertical dimensions separately, in this study we introduce a three-dimensional spatial analysis that simultaneously includes horizontal and vertical species associations. Using tree census data (2000 to 2016) and allometries from the Luquillo forest plot in Puerto Rico, we show that spatial organization becomes less random over time as the forest recovered from land-use legacy effects and hurricane disturbance. Tree species vertical segregation is predominant in the forest with almost all species that co-occur in the horizontal plane avoiding each other in the vertical dimension. Horizontal segregation is less common than vertical, while three-dimensional aggregation (a proxy for direct tree competition) is the least frequent type of spatial association. Furthermore, dominant species are involved in more non-random spatial associations, implying that species co-occurrence is facilitated by species segregation in space. This novel three-dimensional analysis allowed us to identify and quantify tree species spatial distributions, how interspecific competition was reduced through forest structure, and how it changed over time after disturbance, in ways not detectable from two-dimensional analyses alone.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jenny Zambrano
- School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, U.S.A
| | - Gabriel Arellano
- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A.,Oikobit LLC, www.oikobit.com
| | - Nathan G Swenson
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, U.S.A
| | | | - Jill Thompson
- UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Bush Estate, Penicuik, Scotland
| | - William F Fagan
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, U.S.A.,National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.A
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Scarrow R. Risk factors for mortality in individual trees. Nat Plants 2021; 7:1521. [PMID: 34907296 DOI: 10.1038/s41477-021-01053-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
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