Natural disturbance and human land use as determinants of tropical forest dynamics: Results from a forest simulator

Ecological Monographs

Volumn 79, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 423-443

  Uriarte, María ^a   Canham, Charles D ^b   Thompson, Jill ^c   Zimmerman, Jess K ^c   Murphy, Lora ^a,b   Sabat, Alberto M ^c   Fetcher, Ned ^d   Haines, Bruce L ^a  

^a Och Spine at New York Presbyterian Hospitals   (United States)

^b CARY INSTITUTE OF ECOSYSTEM STUDIES   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO   (Puerto Rico)

^d WILKES UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Disturbance theory; Hurricanes; Land use legacies; Luquillo Forest Dynamics Plot; SORTIE; Subtropical wet forest

Indexed keywords

ANTHROPOGENIC EFFECT; COMMUNITY RESPONSE; ECOSYSTEM MODELING; ENVIRONMENTAL DISTURBANCE; FOREST DYNAMICS; HURRICANE; LAND USE; LIFE HISTORY TRAIT; STORM DAMAGE; TROPICAL FOREST;

ATLANTIC ISLANDS; ATLANTIC OCEAN; CARIBBEAN ISLANDS; GREATER ANTILLES; LUQUILLO EXPERIMENTAL FOREST; PUERTO RICO;

EID: 68149122386     PISSN: 00129615     EISSN: 15577015     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1890/08-0707.1     Document Type: Article

References (110)

1. Agresti, A. A. 2002. Categorical data analysis. Second edition. Wiley Press, New York, New York, USA.
2. Agyeman, M. D., M. Swaine, and J. Thompson. 1999. Responses of tropical forest tree seedlings to irradiance and the derivation of a light response index. Journal of Ecology 87:815-827.
3. Beard, K. H., K. A. Vogt, D. J. Vogt, F. N. Scatena, A. P. Covich, R. Sigurdardottir, T. G. Siccama, and T. A. Crowl. 2005. Structural and functional responses of a subtropical forest to 10 years of hurricanes and droughts. Ecological Monographs 75:345-361.
4. Bellingham, P. J. 1991. Landforms influence patterns of hurricane damage - evidence from Jamaican montane forests. Biotropica 23:427-433.
5. Boose, E. R., D. R. Foster, and M. Fluet. 1994. Hurricane impacts to tropical and temperate forest landscapes. Ecological Monographs 64:369-400.
6. Boose, E. R., M. I. Serrano, and D. R. Foster. 2004. Landscape and regional impacts of hurricanes in Puerto Rico. Ecological Monographs 74:335-352.
7. Boucher, D. H., J. H. Vandermeer, I. G. de la Cerda, M. A. Mallona, I. Perfecto, and N. Zamora. 2001. Post-agriculture versus post-hurricane succession in southeastern Nicaraguan rain forest. Plant Ecology 156:131-137.
8. Boucher, D. H., J. H. Vandermeer, M. A. Mallona, N. Zamora, and I. Perfecto. 1994. Resistance and resilience in a directly regenerating rain-forest - Nicaraguan trees of the Vochysiaceae after Hurricane Joan. Forest Ecology and Management 68:127-136.
9. Brokaw, N. V. L. 1998. Cecropia schreberiana in the Luquillo Mountains of Puerto Rico. Botanical Review 64:91-120.
10. Canham, C. D. 1988. An index for understory light levels in and around canopy gaps. Ecology 69:1634-1638.
11. Canham, C. D., M. J. Papaik, and E. F. Latty. 2001. Interspecific variation in susceptibility to windthrow as a function of tree size and storm severity for northern temperate tree species. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 31:1-10.
12. Canham, C. D., J. Thompson, J. K. Zimmerman, and M. Uriarte. In press. Variation in susceptibility to hurricane damage as a function of storm severity in Puerto Rican tree species. Biotropica.
13. Chazdon, R. L. 2003. Tropical forest recovery: legacies of human impact and natural disturbance. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 6:51-71.
14. Chesson, P. 2000. Mechanisms of maintenance of species diversity. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 31: 343-366.
15. Clark, D. A., and D. B. Clark. 1992. Life history diversity of canopy and emergent trees in a neotropical rain forest. Ecological Monographs 62:315-344.
16. Clark, D. B. 1996. Abolishing virginity. Journal of Tropical Ecology 12:735-739.
17. Clark, J. S., J. Mohan, M. Dietze, and I. Ibanez. 2003. Coexistence: how to identify trophic trade-offs. Ecology 84: 17-34.
18. Clark, J. S., et al. 2001. Ecological forecasts: an emerging imperative. Science 293:657-660.
19. Coates, K. D., C. D. Canham, M. Beaudet, D. L. Sachs, and C. Messier. 2003. Use of a spatially-explicit individual tree model to explore the implications of patchiness in structurally complex forests. Forest Ecology and Management 186: 297-310.
20. Condit, R. 1998. Tropical forest census plots: methods and results from Barro Colorado Island, Panama, and a comparison with other plots. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany.
21. Cooper-Ellis, S., D. R. Foster, G. Carlton, and A. Lezberg. 1999. Forest response to catastrophic wind: results from an experimental hurricane. Ecology 80:2683-2696.
22. Crow, T. R. 1980. A rainforest chronicle: a 30-year record of change in structure and composition at El Verde, Puerto Rico. Biotropica 12:42-55.
23. Dambrine, E., J. L. Dupouey, L. Laüt, L. Humbert, M. Thinon, T. Beaufils, and H. Richard. 2007. Present forest biodiversity patterns in France related to former Roman agriculture. Ecology 88:1430-1439.
24. Dayton, P. K., M. J. Tegner, P. E. Parnell, and P. B. Edwards. 1992. Temporal and spatial patterns of disturbance and recovery in a kelp forest community. Ecological Monographs 62:421-445.
25. Drury, W. H., and I. C. T. Nisbet. 1973. Succession. J. Arnold Arboretum 54:331-368.
26. Dupouey, J. L., E. Dambrine, J. D. Laffite, and C. Moares. 2002. Irreversible impact of past land use on forest soils and biodiversity. Ecology 83:2978-2984.
27. Eisner, J., J. P. Kossin, and T. H. Jagger. 2008. The increasing intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones. Nature 445:92-95.
28. Emanuel, K. A. 2005. Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years. Nature 436:686-688.
29. Everham, E. M., III. 1996. Hurricane damage and recovery: an empirical and simulation study of vegetation dynamics in the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico. Dissertation. College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York, Syracuse, New York, USA.
30. Everham, E. M., and N. V. L. Brokaw. 1996. Forest damage and recovery from catastrophic wind. Botanical Review 62: 113-185.
31. Ewel, J. J., and J. L. Whitmore. 1973. The ecological life zones of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Forest Service Research Papers ITF-18. International Institute of Tropical Forestry, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, USA.
32. Faith, D. P., P. R. Minchin, and L. Belbin. 1987. Compositional dissimilarity as a robust measure of ecological distance. Vegetatio 69:57-68.
33. Fernandez, D. S., and N. Fetcher. 1991. Changes in light availability following Hurricane Hugo in a subtropical montane forest in Puerto Rico. Biotropica 23:393-399.
34. Foster, D. R., M. Fluet, and E. R. Boose. 1999. Human or natural disturbance: landscape-scale dynamics of the tropical forests of Puerto Rico. Ecological Applications 9:555-572.
35. Foster, D. R., G. Motzkin, and B. Slater. 1998. Land use history as long-term, broad scale disturbance: regional forest dynamics in central New England. Ecosystems 1:96-119.
36. Foster, D. R., F. Swanson, J. Aber, I. Burke, N. Brokaw, D. Tilman, and A. Knapp. 2003. The importance of land-use legacies to ecology and conservation. BioScience 53:77-88.
37. Frazer, G. W., C. D. Canham, and K. P. Lertzman. 1999. Gap light analyzer. Version 2.0. Imaging software to extract canopy structure and gap light transmission indices from true-colour fisheye photographs: users' manual and program documentation. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, and the Institute of Ecosystems Studies, Millbrook, New York, USA.
38. Frazer, G. W., R. A. Fournier, J. A. Trofymow, and R. J. Hall. 2001. A comparison of digital and film fisheye photography for analysis of forest canopy structure and gap light transmission. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 109: 249-263.
39. Freelich, L. E., and P. B. Reich. 1999. Neighborhood effects, disturbance severity, and community stability in forests. Ecosystems 2:151-166.
40. Garcia-Montiel, D. C. 2002. El legado de la actividad humana en los bosques neotropicales contemporaneos. Pages 97-116 in M. Guariguata and G. Kattan, editors. Ecología y Conservatión de Bosques Neotropicales. Libro Universitario Regional, Cartago, Costa Rica.
41. Glitzenstein, J. S., and P. A. Harcombe. 1988. Effects of the December 1983 tornado on forest vegetation of the Big Thicket, southeast Texas, USA. Forest Ecology and Management 25:29-290.
42. Goldenberg, S. B., C. W. Landsea, A. M. Mestas-Núñez, and W. M. Gray. 2001. The recent increase in Atlantic hurricane activity: causes and implications. Science 293:474-479.
43. Gómez-Pompa, A., and A. Kaus. 1992. Taming the wilderness myth. BioScience 42:271-279.
44. Grau, H. R., T. M. Aide, J. K. Zimmerman, J. R. Thomlinson, E. Helmer, and X. Zou. 2003. The ecological consequences of socioeconomic and land use changes in postagriculture Puerto Rico. BioScience 53:1159-1168.
45. Gray, W. M. 1975. Tropical cyclone genesis. Atmospheric Science Paper Number 24. Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.
46. Grove, S. J., S. M. Turton, and D. T. Siegenthaler. 2000. Mosaics of canopy openness induced by tropical cyclones in lowland rain forests with contrasting management histories in northeastern Australia. Journal of Tropical Ecology 16: 883-894.
47. Guariguata, M. R., and R. Ostertag. 2001. Neotropical secondary forest succession: changes in structural and functional characteristics. Forest Ecology and Management 148:185-206.
48. Guzman-Grajales, S., and L. R. Walker. 1991. Differential seedling responses to litter after Hurricane Hugo in the Luquillo Experimental Forest in Puerto Rico. Biotropica 23: 407-413.
49. Hamilton, M. A. 1991. Model validation: an annotated bibliography. Communication Statistics: Theory and Methods 20:2207-2266.
50. Holling, C. S. 2001. Understanding the complexity of economic, ecological, and social systems. Ecosystems 4:390-405.
51. Horvitz, C. C., J. B. Pascarella, S. McMann, A. Freedman, and R. H. Hofstetter. 1998. Functional roles of invasive nonindigenous plants in hurricane-affected subtropical hardwood forests. Ecological Applications 8:947-974.
52. Hughes, A. R., J. E. Byrnes, D. L. Kimbro, and J. J. Stachowicz. 2007. Reciprocal relationships and potential feedbacks between biodiversity and disturbance. Ecology Letters 10:849-864.
53. ITTO. 2002. ITTO guidelines for the restoration, management and rehabilitation of degraded and secondary tropical forests. International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) Policy development series Number 13.
54. Johnson, J. B., and K. S. Omland. 2004. Model selection in ecology and evolution. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19: 101-108.
55. Levin, S. A., and R. T. Paine. 1974. Disturbance, patch formation, and community structure. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (USA) 71:2744-2747.
56. Liogier, H. A. 1985. Descriptive flora of Puerto Rico and adjacent islands. Volumes I.-V. Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, USA.
57. Loehle, C. 2000. Strategy space and the disturbance spectrum: a life-history model for tree species coexistence. American Naturalist 156:14-33.
58. Losos, E., and E. G. Leigh, Jr., editors 2004. Tropical forest diversity and dynamism: findings from a large scale plot network. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
59. Lugo, A. E. 2000. Effects and outcomes of Caribbean hurricanes in a climate change scenario. Science of the Total Environment 262:243-251.
60. Lugo, A. E., J. Figueroa Colon, and F. N. Scatena. 2000. The Caribbean. Chapter 16 in M. G. Barbour and W. D. Billings, editors. North American terrestrial vegetation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
61. Lugo, A. E., and E. Helmer. 2004. Emerging forests on abandoned land: Puerto Rico's new forests. Forest Ecology and Management 190:145-161.
62. Mabry, C. M., S. P. Hamburg, T. C. Lin, F. W. Horng, H. B. King, and Y. J. Hsia. 1998. Typhoon disturbance and stand-level damage patterns at a subtropical forest in Taiwan. Biotropica 30:238-250.
63. Mann, M. E., and K. A. Emanuel. 2006. Atlantic hurricane trends linked to climate change. EOS: transactions of the American Geophysical Union 87:233-244.
64. Margalef, R. 1968. Perspectives in ecological theory. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
65. McNab, W. H., C. H. Greenberg, and E. C. Berg. 2004. Landscape distribution and characteristics of large hurricanerelated canopy gaps in a southern Appalachian watershed. Forest Ecology and Management 196:435-447.
66. Miner Solá, E. 2000. Historia de los Hurracanes en Puerto Rico. First Book Publishing of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA.
67. Moorcroft, P. R., G. C. Hurtt, and S. W. Pacala. 2001. A method for scaling vegetation dynamics: the ecosystem demography model (ED). Ecological Monographs 71:557-585.
68. Myer, W. B., and B. L. Turner II, editors 1994. Changes in land use and land cover: a global perspective. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
69. Ogle, K., M. Uriarte, J. Thompson, J. Johnstone, A. Jones, Y. Lin, E. Mclntire, and J. Zimmerman. 2006. Implications of vulnerability to hurricane damage for long-term survival of tropical tree species: a Bayesian hierarchical analysis. In J. S. Clark and A. E. Gelfand, editors. Applications of computational statistics in the environmental sciences: hierarchical Bayes and MCMC methods. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
70. Ostertag, R., W. L. Silver, and A. E. Lugo. 2005. Factors affecting mortality and resistance to damage following hurricanes in a rehabilitated subtropical moist forest. Biotropica 37:16-24.
71. Pacala, S. W., C. D. Canham, J. Saponara, J. A. Silander, Jr., R. K. Kobe, and E. Ribbens. 1996. Forest models defined by field measurements: estimation, error analysis, and dynamics. Ecological Monographs 66:1-43.
72. Pacala, S. W., C. D. Canham, J. A. Silander, Jr., and R. K. Kobe. 1994. Sapling growth as a function of resources in a north temperate forest. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 24:2172-2183.
73. Paine, R. T., M. J. Tagener, and E. A. Johnson. 1998. Compounded perturbations yield ecological surprises. Ecosystems 1:535-545.
74. Pascarella, J. B., T. M Aide, and J. K. Zimmerman. 2004. Short-term response of secondary forests to hurricane disturbance in Puerto Rico, USA. Forest Ecology and Management 199:379-393.
75. Peterson, C. J., and S. T. A. Pickett. 1991. Stem damage and resprouting following catastrophic windthrow in an old-growth hemlock-hardwoods forest. Forest Ecology and Management 42:205-217.
76. Pickett, S. T. A. 1976. Succession: an evolutionary interpretation. American Naturalist 110:107-119.
77. Pickett, S. T. A., M. L. Cadenasso, and J. M. Grove. 2005. Biocomplexity in coupled natural-human systems: a multidimensional framework. Ecosystems 8:225-232.
78. Pickett, S. T. A., V. T. Parker, and P. L. Fielder. 1992. The new paradigm in ecology: implications for conservation biology above the species level. Pages 65-88 in P. L. Fiedler and S. K. Jain, editors. Conservation biology: the theory and practice of nature conservation, preservation, and management. Chapman and Hall, New York, New York, USA.
79. Pickett, S. T. A., and P. S. White, editors. 1985. Natural disturbance and patch dynamics: an introduction. The ecology of natural disturbance and patch dynamics. Academic Press, Orlando, Florida, USA.
80. Platt, W. J., B. Beckage, R. F. Doren, and H. H. Slater. 2002. Interactions of large-scale disturbances: prior fire regimes and hurricane mortality of savanna pines. Ecology 83:1566-1572.
81. Platt, W. J., R. F. Doren, and T. V. Armentano. 2000. Effects of Hurricane Andrew on stands of slash pine (Pinus elliottii var. densa) in the everglades region of south Florida (USA). Plant Ecology 146:43-60.
82. Ribbens, E., J. A. Silander, and S. W. Pacala. 1994. Seedling recruitment in forests: calibrating models to predict patterns of tree seedling dispersion. Ecology 75:1794-1806.
83. Romme, W. H., E. H. Everham, L. E. Frelich, M. A. Moritz, and R. E. Sparks. 1998. Are large, infrequent disturbances qualitatively different from small frequent disturbances? Ecosystems 1:524-534.
84. Scatena, F. N., S. Moya, C. Estrada, and J. D. Chinea. 1996. The first five years in the reorganization of aboveground biomass and nutrient use following Hurricane Hugo in the Bisley Experimental Watersheds, Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico. Biotropica 28:424-440.
85. Shea, K., S. H. Roxburgh, and E. S. J. Rauschert. 2004. Moving from pattern to process: coexistence mechanisms under intermediate disturbance regimes. Ecology Letters 7:491-508.
86. Shepherd, J. M., and T. Knutson. 2007. The current debate on the linkage between global warming and hurricanes. Geography Compass 1:1-24.
87. Soil Survey Staff. 1995. Order 1 Soil Survey of the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Grid, Puerto Rico. USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA.
88. Swaine, M. D., and T. C. Whitmore. 1988. On the definition of ecological species groups in tropical rain forests. Vegetatio 75:81-86.
89. Tanner, E. V. J., V. Kapos, and J. R. Healey. 1991. Hurricane effects on forest ecosystems in the Caribbean. Biotropica 23: 513-521.
90. Thompson, J., N. Brokaw, J. K. Zimmerman, R. B. Waide, E. M. Everham III, D. J. Lodge, C. M. Taylor, D. GarcíaMontiel, and M. Fluet. 2002. Land use history, environment, and tree composition in a tropical forest. Ecological Applications 12:1344-1363.
91. Thompson, J., A. E. Lugo, and J. Thomlinson. 2007. Land use history, hurricane disturbance, and the fate of introduced species in a subtropical wet forest in Puerto Rico. Plant Ecology 192:289-301.
92. Uriarte, M., C. D. Canham, J. Thompson, and J. K. Zimmerman. 2004a. A maximum-likelihood, neighborhood analysis of tree growth and survival in a tropical forest. Ecological Monographs 71:591-614.
93. Uriarte, M., C. D. Canham, J. Thompson, J. K. Zimmerman, and N. Brokaw. 2005. Seedling recruitment in a hurricanedriven tropical forest: light limitation, density dependence and the spatial distribution of parent trees. Journal of Ecology 93:291-304.
94. Uriarte, M., and M. Papaik. 2007. Hurricane impacts on dynamics, structure, and carbon sequestration of forest ecosystems in Southern New England. Tellus 59A:519-528.
95. Uriarte, M., L. W. Rivera, J. K. Zimmerman, T. M. Aide, A. G. Power, and A. Flecker. 2004b. Interactions between land use history and hurricane damage in a neotropical forest. Plant Ecology 174:49-58.
96. Vandermeer, J., D. Boucher, I. Perfecto, and I. Granzo de la Cerda. 1996. A theory of disturbance and species diversity: evidence from Nicaragua after Hurricane Joan. Biotropica 28:600-613.
97. Walker, L. R. 1991. Tree damage and recovery from Hurricane Hugo in Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico. Biotropica 23:379-385.
98. Walker, L. R., D. J. Lodge, S. M. Guzmán-Grajales, and N. Fetcher. 2003. Species-specific seedling responses to hurricane disturbance in a Puerto Rican rain forest. Biotropica 35: 472-485.
99. Waller, L. A., D. Smith, J. E. Childs, and L. A. Real. 2003. Monte Carlo assessments of goodness of fit for ecological simulation models. Ecological Modellling 164:49-63.
100. Walsh, R. P. D. 1996. Climate. Pages 159-205 in P. W. Richards, editor. The tropical rainforest: an ecological study. Second edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
101. Webster, P. J., G. J. Holland, J. A. Curry, and H. R. Chang. 2005. Changes in tropical cyclone number, duration, and intensity in a warming environment. Science 309:1844-1846.
102. Weir, J. M. H. 1996. The fire frequency and age mosaic of a mixed wood boreal forest. Thesis. University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.
103. Wen, S., N. Fetcher, and J. K. Zimmerman. 2008. Acclimation responses of tropical tree species to hurricane disturbance: ontogenetic differences. Tree Physiology 28:935-946.
104. Wright, S. J., C. Carrasco, O. Calderón, and S. Paton. 1999. The El Niño Southern Oscillation variable fruit production, and famine in a tropical forest. Ecology 80:1632-1647.
105. Wu, J., and O. L. Loucks. 1995. From balance of nature to hierarchical patch dynamics. Quarterly Review of Biology 70: 439-466.
106. Wyckoff, P. H., and J. S. Clark. 2002. The relationship between growth and mortality for seven co-occurring tree species in the southern Appalachian Mountains. Journal of Ecology 90: 604-615.
107. Yih, K., D. H. Boucher, J. H. Vandermeer, and N. Zamora. 1991. Recovery of rain forest of southeastern Nicaragua after destruction by Hurricane Joan. Biotropica 23:106-113.
108. You, C., and W. H. Petty. 1991. Effects of Hurricane Hugo on Manilkara bidentata, a primary tree species in the Luquillo Experimental Forest in Puerto Rico. Biotropica 23: 106-113.
109. Zimmerman, J. K., T. M. Aide, M. Rosario, M. Serrano, and L. Herrera. 1995. Effects of land management and a recent hurricane on forest structure and composition in the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico. Forest Ecology and Management 77:65-76.
110. Zimmerman, J. K., E. M. Everham, R. B. Waide, D. J. Lodge, C. M. Taylor, and N. V. L. Brokaw. 1994. Responses of tree species to hurricane winds in subtropical wet forest in Puerto Rico - implications for tropical tree life histories. Journal of Ecology 82:911-922.