Seasonal and successional dynamics of size-dependent plant demographic rates in a tropical dry forest

PeerJ

article

Irving Saenz-Pedroza¹  Richard Feldman¹  Casandra Reyes-García¹  Jorge A. Meave²  Luz Maria Calvo-Irabien¹  Filogonio May-Pat¹  Juan M. Dupuy¹ 

[1] Unidad de Recursos Naturales;Departamento de Ecología y Recursos Naturales, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

关键词: Chronosequence resampling;    Plant and species density;    Recruitment;    Mortality;    Dry season;    Rainy season;    Secondary forest succession;    Competition;    Environmental filtering;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.9636

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

5 cm) and small (1–5 cm in diameter) plants. We used linear mixed-effects models to assess the effects of successional stage, seasonality and their changes through time on demographic rates and on plant and species density. Seasonality affected demographic rates and density of large plants, which exhibited high wet-season recruitment and species gain rates at the early stage and high wet-season mortality at the intermediate stage, resulting in an increase in plant and species density early in succession followed by a subsequent stabilization. Small plant density decreased steadily after only 5 years of land abandonment, whereas species density increased with successional stage. A decline in species dominance may be responsible for these contrasting patterns. Seasonality, successional stage and their changes through time had a stronger influence on large plants, likely because of large among-plot variation of small plants. Notwithstanding the short duration of our study, our results suggest that climate-change driven decreases in rainy season precipitation may have an influence on successional dynamics in our study forest as strong as, or even stronger than, prolonged or severe droughts during the dry season.

【 授权许可】

CC BY