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Hülsmann L, Chisholm RA, Comita L, Visser MD, de Souza Leite M, Aguilar S, Anderson-Teixeira KJ, Bourg NA, Brockelman WY, Bunyavejchewin S, Castaño N, Chang-Yang CH, Chuyong GB, Clay K, Davies SJ, Duque A, Ediriweera S, Ewango C, Gilbert GS, Holík J, Howe RW, Hubbell SP, Itoh A, Johnson DJ, Kenfack D, Král K, Larson AJ, Lutz JA, Makana JR, Malhi Y, McMahon SM, McShea WJ, Mohamad M, Nasardin M, Nathalang A, Norden N, Oliveira AA, Parmigiani R, Perez R, Phillips RP, Pongpattananurak N, Sun IF, Swanson ME, Tan S, Thomas D, Thompson J, Uriarte M, Wolf AT, Yao TL, Zimmerman JK, Zuleta D, Hartig F. Latitudinal patterns in stabilizing density dependence of forest communities. Nature 2024; 627:564-571. [PMID: 38418889 PMCID: PMC10954553 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07118-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/05/2022] [Accepted: 01/25/2024] [Indexed: 03/02/2024]
Abstract
Numerous studies have shown reduced performance in plants that are surrounded by neighbours of the same species1,2, a phenomenon known as conspecific negative density dependence (CNDD)3. A long-held ecological hypothesis posits that CNDD is more pronounced in tropical than in temperate forests4,5, which increases community stabilization, species coexistence and the diversity of local tree species6,7. Previous analyses supporting such a latitudinal gradient in CNDD8,9 have suffered from methodological limitations related to the use of static data10-12. Here we present a comprehensive assessment of latitudinal CNDD patterns using dynamic mortality data to estimate species-site-specific CNDD across 23 sites. Averaged across species, we found that stabilizing CNDD was present at all except one site, but that average stabilizing CNDD was not stronger toward the tropics. However, in tropical tree communities, rare and intermediate abundant species experienced stronger stabilizing CNDD than did common species. This pattern was absent in temperate forests, which suggests that CNDD influences species abundances more strongly in tropical forests than it does in temperate ones13. We also found that interspecific variation in CNDD, which might attenuate its stabilizing effect on species diversity14,15, was high but not significantly different across latitudes. Although the consequences of these patterns for latitudinal diversity gradients are difficult to evaluate, we speculate that a more effective regulation of population abundances could translate into greater stabilization of tropical tree communities and thus contribute to the high local diversity of tropical forests.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lisa Hülsmann
- Ecosystem Analysis and Simulation (EASI) Lab, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany.
- Theoretical Ecology, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany.
- Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany.
| | - Ryan A Chisholm
- Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Liza Comita
- School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City, Panama
| | - Marco D Visser
- Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
| | | | - Salomon Aguilar
- Forest Global Earth Observatory, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City, Panama
| | - Kristina J Anderson-Teixeira
- Forest Global Earth Observatory, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City, Panama
- Conservation Ecology Center, Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, USA
| | - Norman A Bourg
- Conservation Ecology Center, Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, USA
| | - Warren Y Brockelman
- National Biobank of Thailand (NBT), National Science and Technology Development Agency, Bangkok, Thailand
- Institute of Molecular Biosciences, Mahidol University, Nakhon Pathom, Thailand
| | - Sarayudh Bunyavejchewin
- Thai Long Term Forest Ecological Research Project, Department of Forest Biology, Faculty of Forestry, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand
| | - Nicolas Castaño
- Instituto Amazónico de Investigaciones Científicas Sinchi, Bogotá, Colombia
| | - Chia-Hao Chang-Yang
- Department of Biological Sciences, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
| | | | - Keith Clay
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA
| | - Stuart J Davies
- Forest Global Earth Observatory, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Washington, DC, USA
| | - Alvaro Duque
- Departamento de Ciencias Forestales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín, Medellín, Colombia
| | - Sisira Ediriweera
- Department of Science and Technology, Uva Wellassa University, Badulla, Sri Lanka
| | | | - Gregory S Gilbert
- Environmental Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
| | - Jan Holík
- Department of Forest Ecology, Silva Tarouca Research Institute, Brno, Czech Republic
| | - Robert W Howe
- Cofrin Center for Biodiversity, Department of Biology, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Green Bay, WI, USA
| | - Stephen P Hubbell
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Akira Itoh
- Graduate School of Science, Osaka Metropolitan University, Osaka, Japan
| | - Daniel J Johnson
- School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - David Kenfack
- Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO), Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Washington, DC, USA
| | - Kamil Král
- Department of Forest Ecology, Silva Tarouca Research Institute, Brno, Czech Republic
| | - Andrew J Larson
- Department of Forest Management, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA
- Wilderness Institute, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA
| | - James A Lutz
- Department of Wildland Resources, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA
| | | | - Yadvinder Malhi
- Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Sean M McMahon
- Forest Global Earth Observatory, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Washington, DC, USA
- Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD, USA
| | - William J McShea
- Conservation Ecology Center, Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, USA
| | | | | | - Anuttara Nathalang
- National Biobank of Thailand (NBT), National Science and Technology Development Agency, Bangkok, Thailand
| | - Natalia Norden
- Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt, Bogotá, Colombia
| | | | - Renan Parmigiani
- Department of Ecology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Rolando Perez
- Forest Global Earth Observatory, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City, Panama
| | | | | | - I-Fang Sun
- Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, National Donghwa University, Hualien, Taiwan
| | - Mark E Swanson
- School of the Environment, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA
| | | | - Duncan Thomas
- Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA
| | - Jill Thompson
- UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Bush Estate, Penicuik, UK
| | - Maria Uriarte
- Department of Ecology, Evolution & Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Amy T Wolf
- Department of Biology, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Green Bay, WI, USA
| | - Tze Leong Yao
- Forest Research Institute Malaysia, Kepong, Malaysia
| | - Jess K Zimmerman
- Department of Environmental Science, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, USA
| | - Daniel Zuleta
- Forest Global Earth Observatory, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Washington, DC, USA
| | - Florian Hartig
- Theoretical Ecology, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
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Furniss TJ, Das AJ, van Mantgem PJ, Stephenson NL, Lutz JA. Crowding, climate, and the case for social distancing among trees. ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS : A PUBLICATION OF THE ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2022; 32:e2507. [PMID: 34870871 DOI: 10.1002/eap.2507] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2021] [Revised: 06/25/2021] [Accepted: 07/30/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
In an emerging era of megadisturbance, bolstering forest resilience to wildfire, insects, and drought has become a central objective in many western forests. Climate has received considerable attention as a driver of these disturbances, but few studies have examined the complexities of climate-vegetation-disturbance interactions. Current strategies for creating resilient forests often rely on retrospective approaches, seeking to impart resilience by restoring historical conditions to contemporary landscapes, but historical conditions are becoming increasingly unattainable amidst modern bioclimatic conditions. What becomes an appropriate benchmark for resilience when we have novel forests, rapidly changing climate, and unprecedented disturbance regimes? We combined two longitudinal datasets-each representing some of the most comprehensive spatially explicit, annual tree mortality data in existence-in a post-hoc factorial design to examine the nonlinear relationships between fire, climate, forest spatial structure, and bark beetles. We found that while prefire drought elevated mortality risk, advantageous local neighborhoods could offset these effects. Surprisingly, mortality risk (Pm ) was higher in crowded local neighborhoods that burned in wet years (Pm = 42%) compared with sparse neighborhoods that burned during drought (Pm = 30%). Risk of beetle attack was also increased by drought, but lower conspecific crowding impeded the otherwise positive interaction between fire and beetle attack. Antecedent fire increased drought-related mortality over short timespans (<7 years) but reduced mortality over longer intervals. These results clarify interacting disturbance dynamics and provide a mechanistic underpinning for forest restoration strategies. Importantly, they demonstrate the potential for managed fire and silvicultural strategies to offset climate effects and bolster resilience to fire, beetles, and drought.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tucker J Furniss
- Wildland Resources Department and Ecology Center, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, USA
- USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Wenatchee, Washington, USA
| | - Adrian J Das
- U.S. Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, Three Rivers, California, USA
| | | | - Nathan L Stephenson
- U.S. Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, Three Rivers, California, USA
| | - James A Lutz
- Wildland Resources Department and Ecology Center, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, USA
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