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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY THE
URIARTE LAB Department of Ecology, Evolution &
Environmental Biology |
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Successional
vegetation dynamics in wet tropical forests at multiple scales: integrating
neighbourhood effects, functional traits, and phylogeny Collaborators Robin Chazdon,
University of Connecticut Nate Swenson, Michigan
State University Jess Zimmerman,
University of Puerto Rico John Kress,
Smithsonian Institution 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 stand-level patterns are highly
dependent on physical and biotic features of the disturbed site and of the
surrounding landscape and region. We
have developed a novel research program to integrate detailed phylogenetic, functional trait, and long-term successional forest dynamics data within a spatially
explicit Bayesian modeling framework to assess the
relative importance of habitat filtering, niche differentiation, and
recruitment limitation in driving tropical forest community. Our modeling approach to forecasting successional
dynamics using spatially-explicit models will utilize three types of
information: (1) long-term spatially-referenced demographic databases of
assemblages of tree species in seedling, sapling, and tree size classes in
forests at different successional stages; (2)
databases of leaf, wood, and seed functional traits for species within these
forests, incorporating species-level variation across plots and ontogenetic
stages; and (3) highly resolved, species-level phylogenies for the regional
species pools in both study areas. 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) and at a series of
long-term secondary successional plots near La Selva field station in Costa Rica (The Bosques
project). |