Data from: Tree demographic strategies largely overlap across succession in Neotropical wet and dry forest communities
Data files
Apr 03, 2024 version files 60.36 MB
Abstract
Secondary tropical forests play an increasingly important role in carbon budgets and biodiversity conservation. Understanding successional trajectories is therefore imperative for guiding forest restoration and climate change mitigation efforts. Forest succession is driven by the demographic strategies – combinations of growth, mortality, and recruitment rates – of the tree species in the community. However, our understanding of demographic diversity in tropical tree species stems almost exclusively from old-growth forests. Here, we assembled demographic information from repeated forest inventories along chronosequences in two wet (Costa Rica, Panama) and two dry (Mexico) Neotropical forests to assess whether the ranges of demographic strategies present in a community shift across succession. We calculated demographic rates for >500 tree species while controlling for canopy status to compare demographic diversity (i.e. the ranges of demographic strategies) in early successional (0-30 years), late successional (30-120 years), and old-growth forests using two-dimensional hypervolumes of pairs of demographic rates. Ranges of demographic strategies largely overlapped across successional stages, and early successional stages already covered the full spectrum of demographic strategies found in old-growth forests. An exception was a group of species characterized by exceptionally high mortality rates that were confined to early successional stages in the two wet forests. The range of demographic strategies did not expand with succession. Our results suggest that studies of long-term forest monitoring plots in old-growth forests, from which most of our current understanding of demographic strategies of tropical tree species is derived, are surprisingly representative of demographic diversity in general, but do not replace the need for further studies in secondary forests.
README: Tree demographic strategies largely overlap across succession in Neotropical wet and dry forest communities
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.f7m0cfz4h
This dataset contains all data and R scripts to reproduce the results and figures from Schorn et al. (in revision): "Tree demographic strategies largely overlap across succession in Neotropical wet and dry forest communities", Ecology.
Necessary data like demographic rates for all species in the studied sites are stored in the data folder. Some results needed to produce the figures are already stored in the results folder, but can be independently reproduced in the scripts 01_hypervolumes.R and 02_bootstrap_rarefaction.R. All scripts are stored in the scripts folder.
Description of the data and file structure
demographic_rates_site.txt
Contains growth, survival, and recruitment rates for all species in all successional stages per site. Needed to compute the hypervolumes and to produce Figures 2, S3-S6, and S11-S14.
- sp: 8 letter species code
- time_slice: Successional stage ("0-30" for early successional forests, "30-120" for late-successional forests, "old_growth" for old-growth forests)
- growth1: Growth rate in canopy layer 1 (mm dbh/year)
- growth2: Growth rate in canopy layer 2 (mm dbh/year)
- growth3: Growth rate in canopy layer 3 (mm dbh/year)
- growth4: Growth rate in canopy layer 4 (mm dbh/year)
- growth1_sample_size: Number of growth observations used to derive the growth rate in canopy layer 1
- growth2_sample_size: Number of growth observations used to derive the growth rate in canopy layer 2
- growth3_sample_size: Number of growth observations used to derive the growth rate in canopy layer 3
- growth4_sample_size: Number of growth observations used to derive the growth rate in canopy layer 4
- survival1: Survival rate in canopy layer 1 (%)
- survival2: Survival rate in canopy layer 1 (%)
- survival3: Survival rate in canopy layer 1 (%)
- survival4: Survival rate in canopy layer 1 (%)
- survival1_sample_size: Number of observations used to derive the survival rate in canopy layer 1
- survival2_sample_size: Number of observations used to derive the survival rate in canopy layer 2
- survival3_sample_size: Number of observations used to derive the survival rate in canopy layer 3
- survival4_sample_size: Number of observations used to derive the survival rate in canopy layer 4
- recruits_year: Number of observed recruits per year
- recruits_year_ha: Number of observed recruits per year and hectare
- recruits_year_per_capita: Number of observed recruits per capita
inventory_site.txt
Contains the number of individuals of species in 5-year stand age classes per site. Needed to produce Figure 4 and Figures S8 and S9.
- sp: 8 letter species code
- ageclass: 5 years stand age class ("5" for 0-5 years, "10" for 6-10 years, etc; "400" for old-growth forests)
- Nperha_5cm: Number of individuals per ha with >= 5cm dbh
- Nperha_total: Number of individuals per ha with >= 1cm dbh
Sites_Plots_Ages_Cutoffs_Areas.txt
Contains information on stand age, size, and dbh cutoffs for all forest inventory plots used in the paper. Needed to produce figures S1 and S2.
- site: Name of the site
- time_slice: Successional stage that the census interval is assigned ("0-30" for early successional forests, "30-120" for late-successional forests, "old_growth" for old-growth forests)
- dataset: Name of the dataset the plot is part of
- plotcode: Plot ID
- census_1: Year in which the first measurement of the respective census interval was conducted.
- census_2: Year in which the second measurement of the respective census interval was conducted.
- age_1: Stand age at the time of the first measurement of the respective census interval.
- age_2: Stand age at the time of the second measurement of the respective census interval.
- interval_length_in_years: Length of the census interval in years
- interval_id: Unique identifier for the census interval
- general_dbh_cutoff_cm: The dbh cutoff that applies to the entire area of the plot in the respective census interval.
- total_area_ha: Total area of the plot in the respective census interval.
- dbh_cutoff_for_subplots_1_cm: Value of the dbh cutoff that applied to a subplot within the plot (cm)
- area_subplots_1_ha: Area of the subplot to which the dbh cutoff above applies (ha)
- dbh_cutoff_for_subplots_2_cm: Value of the dbh cutoff that is applied to a second subplot within the plot (cm)
- area_subplots_2_ha: Area of the subplot to which the second dbh cutoff above applies (ha)
- used_for_recruitment_1cm: 1 if the census interval was used to calculate recruitment rates (boolean)
- area_for_recruitment_1cm_ha: Area of the plot/subplot with 1cm dbh cutoff used to calculate per hectare recruitment rates (ha)
- area_1cm_ha: Area of the plot/subplot with 1 cm dbh cutoff (ha) used to calculate, e.g., per hectare abundances
- area_2.5cm_ha: Area of the plot/subplot with 2.5 cm dbh cutoff (ha) used to calculate, e.g., per hectare abundances
- area_5cm_ha: Area of the plot/subplot with 5 cm dbh cutoff (ha) used to calculate, e.g., per hectare abundances
- area_7.5cm_ha: Area of the plot/subplot with 7.5 cm dbh cutoff (ha) used to calculate, e.g., per hectare abundances
- area_10cm_ha: Area of the plot/subplot with 10 cm dbh cutoff (ha) used to calculate, e.g., per hectare abundances
species_list_all_sites.txt
- sp: 8 letter species code
- genus: Genus name
- *species: Species name
- sp_full: Full species name (Genus & species)
- authority: Author citation
- family: Family name
Code/Software
All code was developed under R version 4.3.1