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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY THE
URIARTE LAB Department of Ecology, Evolution &
Environmental Biology |
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Interactive
effects of climate variability and human land use on long-term community
dynamics of successional wet forests Collaborators Jess K.
Zimmerman, University of Puerto Rico Jill Thompson, CEH,
Edinburgh Secondary
forests in the tropics currently comprise roughly half the world’s remaining
tropical forests. Despite the increasing importance of secondary forest
regeneration throughout the tropics, research on the ecology and dynamics of
secondary forests has lagged behind studies conducted in mature forests. The
inherent complexity of successional processes
challenges our ability to provide clear predictions of the future status of
tropical secondary forests and their global role in sustaining biodiversity
and ecosystem services. Both stochastic and deterministic processes drive
secondary forest succession and local (stand-level) patterns are highly
dependent on physical and biotic features of the disturbed site and of the
surrounding landscape and region. Our
research is conducted in the Luquillo Forest
Dynamics Plot (LFDP), a 16-ha plot of subtropical wet forest in the Luquillo Experimental Forest
in Puerto Rico, part of a Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site and the Smithsonian network of
large plots (CTFS) The LFDP has been
subject to dramatic natural and human disturbance providing a much needed
perspective on the effects of these disturbances on forest structure and
composition. We rely on spatially-explicit, stand-level, mechanistic models
of forest dynamics that explore how variation in life history traits (e.g.,
response to wind damage and drought) among tree species determines forest
resilience to hurricane disturbance and regional drought and how human
land-use legacies affect recovery processes.
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