Florian Hartig Theoretical Ecology & Ecological Data Science

← Publications

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
Cited by 52 (Google Scholar) · 48 (OpenAlex), as of 07 September 2026

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)

Ecological turnover during forest succession — shifting allometries, changing competition, community composition drifting with stand age — was mostly documented in temperate systems before this study. Using structure and composition data from a tropical forest, the authors find the same kind of systematic shift, with competition peaking specifically at intermediate successional stages, extending a well-known temperate pattern to the tropics where it had been comparatively untested.