Florian Hartig

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Structure and community composition in a tropical forest suggest a change of ecological processes during stand development

Wirong Chanthorn, Florian Hartig & Warren Y. Brockelman

Forest Ecology and Management, 404, 100–107 (2017)
Cite this
@article{chanthorn2017structure,
  author = {Wirong Chanthorn and Florian Hartig and Warren Y. Brockelman},
  title = {Structure and community composition in a tropical forest suggest a change of ecological processes during stand development},
  journal = {Forest Ecology and Management},
  volume = {404},
  pages = {100--107},
  year = {2017},
  doi = {10.1016/j.foreco.2017.08.001},
}

DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2017.08.001
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Funding

This study was supported through funding by National Science and Technology Development Agency.

View article (DOI)

Abstract

Ecological theories assume that ecological processes change during stand development. This change should be reflected in patterns of tree and crown allometries, stand demography and community composition. Empirical tests of these predictions have largely concentrated on temperate forests. Here, we ask whether these expectations also hold in tropical forests. We established eight permanent inventory plots of different ages in a tropical forest in Thailand, and measured dbh, crown architecture and community composition. We then tested whether differences in (1) allometries, (2) size structure, (3) stand structure and (4) community composition between plots are consistent with expectations from succession theory. In particular, we tested if tree and stand patterns conform to the expectation that competition intensity is highest during intermediate development stages, and that species specialize into particular successional niches. We find that the empirical patterns in the plots are compatible with both assumptions. Observed dbh-height and crown allometries, as well as stand attributes, suggest that trees respond to denser packing in the intermediate development stage (stem exclusion stage) by increased investments in height growth, presumably because of strong resource competition, particularly for light. Packing and competition seems less pronounced in earlier and later stages. An analysis of community composition shows that species composition clustered with development stages, suggesting a specialization into successional niches. In conclusion, stand attributes of the tropical plots used in this study largely conform to the predictions of forest stand development theories that have so far mainly been tested in temperate forests. We did not find evidence for qualitative differences between tropical and temperate stand development.

What the paper shows and why it matters

(AI-generated)

Theories of forest stand development assume that a stand passes through stages after a disturbance, with ecological processes changing along the way. In the four-stage model for temperate forests, the central change is competition for light and space: low in the open young stand, highest once the canopy closes and trees thin each other out (the stem-exclusion stage), and mixed with other processes in old growth. This should show in tree shape, stand structure and species composition. The theories were built and tested mainly in temperate forests, so it is fair to ask whether they carry over to far more diverse tropical forests. To the paper’s knowledge, no study had tested this quantitatively across all stages. The paper examines the assumption that the temperate model may not hold in the tropics.

The study finds that tree and stand patterns in a Thai tropical forest are broadly compatible with the temperate theory that competition for light peaks at an intermediate stage of stand development and that species specialise in particular stages, with no sign of a qualitative tropical–temperate difference. The study compared eight plots in Khao Yai National Park: young and intermediate stands regrown on abandoned fields, and old growth. At the same trunk diameter, trees were tallest in the stem-exclusion stage and shortest in the youngest stage, and the crowns of a plot together covered most ground area in stem exclusion. Plots of one stage also grouped together by species composition, read as specialisation in stages. The evidence is partial. Crown-length differences were weak, stem density did not peak in stem exclusion as expected, and species richness did not differ between the two younger stages.

The paper concludes that the results are compatible with qualitatively similar processes during stand development in species-rich tropical and species-poor temperate forests. The data come from eight plots at one site, with the youngest plots lying apart from the others and one possibly shaped by local moisture. The paper adds that replication in forests of differing richness and soils would be interesting and might one day help refine a general theory of succession. A later study with overlapping authorship (Jha et al. 2020) applied the paper’s stage classification and stage ages to 70 plots, eight of them the paper’s own.

References

  • Jha et al. (2020). Forest aboveground biomass stock and resilience in a tropical landscape of Thailand. Biogeosciences 17, 121–134. doi:10.5194/bg-17-121-2020