Article
Plant Sciences
Margaret R. Metz, S. Joseph Wright, Jess K. Zimmerman, Andres Hernandez, Samuel M. Smith, Nathan G. Swenson, M. Natalia Umana, L. Renato Valencia, Ina Waring-Enriquez, Mason Wordell, Milton Zambrano, Nancy C. Garwood
Summary: Understanding the mechanisms of species coexistence in tropical forests is challenging, but functional traits can predict performance differences among species. Seedling traits and performance trade-offs differ from those of adult individuals. Cotyledon strategy and seed mass play important roles in seedling growth and survival.
JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Liza S. Comita, Salomon Aguilar, Stephen P. Hubbell, Rolando Perez
Summary: Censuses of seedlings in the permanent Forest Dynamics Plot on Barro Colorado Island, Panama were conducted between 2001 and 2018, resulting in a dataset of nearly 1 million observations of over 185,000 individuals of >400 tree, shrub, and liana species. These data will allow for spatially-explicit analyses of seedling distributions, recruitment, growth, and survival for hundreds of woody plant species.
Article
Ecology
Joshua S. S. Madin, Andrew H. H. Baird, Sean R. R. Connolly, Maria A. A. Dornelas, Mariana Alvarez-Noriega, Michael J. J. McWilliam, Miguel Barbosa, Shane A. A. Blowes, Paulina Cetina-Heredia, Alec P. P. Christie, Vivian R. R. Cumbo, Marcela Diaz, Madeleine A. A. Emms, Erin Graham, Dominique Hansen, Mizue Hisano, Emily Howells, Chao-Yang Kuo, Caroline Palmer, James Tan Chun Hong, Theophilus Zhi En Teo, Rachael M. M. Woods
Summary: In this study, scleractinian corals were tagged and tracked to measure their vital rates and competitive interactions. Despite being disrupted by a tropical cyclone, the data collected can still be valuable for researchers interested in coral ecology and population dynamics.
Article
Ecology
Kelly A. Carscadden, Daniel F. Doak, Meagan F. Oldfather, Nancy C. Emery
Summary: Hybridization between taxa can lead to new genetic variation and different responses to the environment compared to the parental lineages. This study focused on the demographic responses of two cinquefoil taxa and their hybrid in the Southern Rockies. The findings suggest that hybrids may not always be superior to the parents and the consequences of hybridization are context-dependent.
ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Robert K. Shriver, Charles B. Yackulic, David M. Bell, John B. Bradford
Summary: Climate change affects the distribution and abundance of tree species, with recruitment and survival rates differing across species in response to drying and warming conditions. This research provides a method for predicting the impacts of global change on species distributions using large-scale monitoring and remotely sensed data.
Article
Ecology
Emily L. Schultz, Lisa Huelsmann, Michiel D. Pillet, Florian Hartig, David D. Breshears, Sydne Record, John D. Shaw, R. Justin DeRose, Pieter A. Zuidema, Margaret E. K. Evans
Summary: Estimates show that climate change can lead to the extinction of a significant percentage of species, but the predictive models for range changes need to include factors beyond just climate. Research on the distribution of Pinus edulis suggests that climate and competition alone do not fully explain the species' distribution, with climate influencing other range-limiting processes as well. The complex effects of climate on species distributions, including indirect effects and interactions, may result in unforeseen changes in abundance and distribution.
Article
Plant Sciences
Felicien Meunier, Hans Verbeeck, Betsy Cowdery, Stefan A. Schnitzer, Chris M. Smith-Martin, Jennifer S. Powers, Xiangtao Xu, Martijn Slot, Hannes P. T. De Deurwaerder, Matteo Detto, Damien Bonal, Marcos Longo, Louis S. Santiago, Michael Dietze
Summary: Despite their low contribution to forest carbon stocks, lianas play a significant role in the carbon dynamics of tropical forests by negatively impacting tree growth through competition for resources. Using a process-based vegetation model to evaluate resource availability uncertainty provides insights into the interactions between trees and lianas. Through this modelling approach, water limitation was identified as a key factor driving competition in drier sites, highlighting the importance of considering key liana traits and processes for future data acquisition and model development in liana-infested forests.
JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Hanna A. Nomoto, Jake M. Alexander
Summary: The scarcity of local plant extinctions following recent climate change can be explained by a combination of demographic inertia and lags in novel species establishment, particularly important for some species under low levels of warming.
Article
Ecology
Luke Browne, Lars Markesteijn, Eric Manzane-Pinzon, S. Joseph Wright, Robert Bagchi, Bettina M. J. Engelbrecht, F. Andrew Jones, Liza S. Comita
Summary: The relationship between functional traits and performance is often weak or uncertain, especially for plants. This study examined the trait-rate relationships for six functional traits in woody plants across eight forest sites in Panama. The results showed widespread variation in the strength of trait-rate relationships across sites, with some variations explained by soil phosphorus availability.
FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Plant Sciences
Kenneth J. J. Davidson, Julien Lamour, Alistair Rogers, Kim S. S. Ely, Qianyu Li, Nate G. G. McDowell, Alexandria L. L. Pivovaroff, Brett T. T. Wolfe, S. Joseph Wright, Alfonso Zambrano, Shawn P. P. Serbin
Summary: Understanding the mechanisms of stomatal regulation of transpiration and CO2 assimilation is crucial for predicting the response of terrestrial ecosystems to global change. A study was conducted on six tropical broadleaf evergreen tree species to evaluate the estimation of g(1) and g(0) parameters. The results showed uncertainties in the physiological and mechanistic controls on these parameters. Improving the accuracy of modeled stomatal conductance can be achieved by considering the diurnal variation and measurement approaches of stomatal behavior.
Letter
Ecology
Fons van der Plas, Thomas Schroeder-Georgi, Alexandra Weigelt, Kathryn Barry, Sebastian Meyer, Adriana Alzate, Romain L. Barnard, Nina Buchmann, Hans de Kroon, Anne Ebeling, Nico Eisenhauer, Christof Engels, Markus Fischer, Gerd Gleixner, Anke Hildebrandt, Eva Koller-France, Sophia Leimer, Alexandru Milcu, Liesje Mommer, Pascal A. Niklaus, Yvonne Oelmann, Christiane Roscher, Christoph Scherber, Michael Scherer-Lorenzen, Stefan Scheu, Bernhard Schmid, Ernst-Detlef Schulze, Vicky Temperton, Teja Tscharntke, Winfried Voigt, Wolfgang Weisser, Wolfgang Wilcke, Christian Wirth
NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Damie Pak, Varun Swamy, Patricia Alvarez-Loayza, Fernando Cornejo-Valverde, Simon A. Queenborough, Margaret R. Metz, John Terborgh, Renato Valencia, S. Joseph Wright, Nancy C. Garwood, Jesse R. Lasky
Summary: The study found that seed fall phenology in tropical plant communities exhibits significant synchrony and is influenced by shared environmental responses and positive interactions among species. Within species groups, both compensatory and synchronous phenology were observed. Wind-dispersed species showed significant synchrony at a scale of approximately 6 months, suggesting shared phenological niches to match seasonal wind patterns.
Editorial Material
Ecology
Peter H. H. Thrall, Jonathan Chase, John Drake, Nathalie Espuno, Stephane Hello, Vanessa Ezenwa, Barbara Han, Akira Mori, Helene Muller-Landau
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Edwin Lebrija-Trejos, Andres Hernandez, S. Joseph Wright
Summary: Tropical tree diversity increases with rainfall, potentially due to direct physiological effects of moisture availability and indirect effects mediated by biotic interactions. This study in central Panama evaluated the relationships between interannual variation in moisture availability, density-dependent interactions, and seedling diversity. It found that diversity increased with soil moisture, and this effect persisted for at least 15 years. Negative density-dependent interactions among conspecifics in wetter years contributed to the observed increase in diversity, suggesting an indirect enhancement of diversity through moisture-sensitive interactions. Pathogens and phytophagous insects, many of which are moisture-sensitive, mediate seedling interactions in tropical forests, and changes in moisture availability may impact these interactions and tree diversity.
Article
Plant Sciences
Julien Lamour, Kenneth J. Davidson, Kim S. Ely, Gilles Le Moguedec, Jeremiah A. Anderson, Qianyu Li, Osvaldo Calderon, Charles D. Koven, S. Joseph Wright, Anthony P. Walker, Shawn P. Serbin, Alistair Rogers
Summary: This study compared the representation of vertical gradients of key leaf traits in terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs) with measurements in a tropical forest, and quantified the impact of these gradients on simulated canopy-scale CO2 and water fluxes. The comparison showed divergence between the observed and modeled trait gradients, which influenced canopy-scale simulations of water vapor and CO2 exchange. The study suggests that current assumptions about leaf trait gradients in TBMs are not accurate for complex tropical forests.
Article
Ecology
Samuel J. L. Gascoigne, Simon Rolph, Daisy Sankey, Nagalakshmi Nidadavolu, Adrian Stell S. Picman, Christina M. Hernandez, Matthew E. R. Philpott, Aiyla Salam, Connor Bernard, Erola Fenollosa, Young Jun Lee, Jessica McLean, Shathuki Hetti Achchige Perera, Oliver G. Spacey, Maja Kajin, Anna C. Vinton, C. Ruth Archer, Jean H. Burns, Danielle L. Buss, Hal Caswell, Judy P. Che-Castaldo, Dylan Z. Childs, Pol Capdevila, Aldo Compagnoni, Elizabeth Crone, Thomas H. G. Ezard, Dave Hodgson, Tiffany M. Knight, Owen R. Jones, Eelke Jongejans, Jenni McDonald, Brigitte Tenhumberg, Chelsea C. Thomas, Andrew J. Tyre, Satu Ramula, Iain Stott, Raymond L. Tremblay, Phil Wilson, James W. Vaupel, Roberto Salguero-Gomez
Summary: Stage-based demographic methods, such as matrix population models (MPMs), are powerful tools used to address a broad range of fundamental questions in ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation science. However, there is pronounced variation in how MPMs are parameterized and reported, lacking standardization. This article summarises current issues and provides suggestions for improving clarity, reproducibility and future research utilising MPMs.
METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2023)
Article
Biology
Finn Rehling, Eelke Jongejans, Jan Schlautmann, Joerg Albrecht, Hubert Fassbender, Bogdan Jaroszewicz, Diethart Matthies, Lina Waldschmidt, Nina Farwig, Dana G. Schabo
Summary: A decade-long study in an old-growth forest in Poland found that the population growth of glossy buckthorn trees is more influenced by a small subset of common generalists rather than specialist frugivores. The study used animal-specific integral projection models to quantify the effect of seed dispersal by 20 animal species on the tree's life cycle. It was found that animal seed dispersal increased population growth by 2.5%, and the effectiveness was related to interaction frequency rather than dispersal quality.
COMMUNICATIONS BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Nancy C. Garwood, Margaret R. Metz, Simon A. Queenborough, Viveca Persson, S. Joseph Wright, David F. R. P. Burslem, Milton Zambrano, Renato Valencia
Summary: A long-term study of flowering and fruiting phenology in the Yasuni forest in eastern Ecuador showed strong seasonal patterns. Flowering peaked in September-November, while fruiting peaked in March-April. The study also found that irradiance and rainfall also exhibited seasonal variations. This suggests that reproductive phenology is generally seasonal in the ever-wet lowland equatorial forests of northwestern Amazonia.
Article
Geography, Physical
Calvin Ka Fai Lee, Guangqin Song, Helene C. Muller-Landau, Shengbiao Wu, S. Joseph Wright, K. C. Cushman, Raquel Fernandes Araujo, Stephanie Bohlman, Yingyi Zhao, Ziyu Lin, Zounachuan Sun, Peter Chuen Yan Cheng, Michael Kwok-Po Ng, Jin Wu
Summary: A method integrating deep learning algorithm with high resolution imagery from drone surveys was developed to accurately detect flowering species and track flowering timing in a tropical forest. The method demonstrated high accuracy in classifying flowers and showed potential in advancing fine-scale flower monitoring in the tropics.
ISPRS JOURNAL OF PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND REMOTE SENSING
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Michael Kalyuzhny, Jeffrey K. Lake, S. Joseph Wright, Annette M. Ostling
Summary: For species to coexist, there must be a decline in performance as conspecific density increases. In this study, it is shown that adults of tropical forest tree species exhibit strong spatial repulsion, indicating substantial niche differences between species. The results demonstrate that conspecific negative density dependence can play a significant role in stabilizing species diversity.
Article
Soil Science
Molly E. Huber, Joseph B. Yavitt, S. Joseph Wright
Summary: This study investigated the physical association between minerals and organic matter in different types of soils in the Barro Colorado Island tropical forest in Panama. The results showed that macroaggregates, composed of plant detritus and microaggregates, play a key role in protecting soil organic matter.
Article
Plant Sciences
Jason Vleminckx, J. Aaron Hogan, Margaret R. Metz, Liza S. Comita, Simon A. Queenborough, S. Joseph Wright, Renato Valencia, Milton Zambrano, Nancy C. Garwood
Summary: Research shows that flower production in everwet western Amazonian forests declines as nighttime temperature and relative humidity increase, suggesting a negative impact of warmer nights and greater atmospheric water saturation on reproduction. Different plant species exhibit varying responses to climatic variables, but this variation is not explained by life form or phylogeny.
Article
Ecology
Chia-Hao Chang-Yang, Po-Hui Chiang, S. Joseph Wright, Chang-Fu Hsieh, I-Fang Sun
Summary: Plants have evolved mechanisms to track seasonal variation in environmental resources, enabling them to time key life-history events to appropriate seasons. Our study compared the first flowering dates predicted by different cues in a subtropical rainforest. We found that temperature cues best explained interannual variation in flowering dates, while cues associated with photoperiod, irradiance, and rainfall had lower predictive power.