Opposing mechanisms affect taxonomic convergence between tree assemblages during tropical forest succession |
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| Authors: | Natalia Norden Vanessa Boukili Anne Chao K H Ma Susan G Letcher Robin L Chazdon |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt, Bogotá, Colombia;2. Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development, City of Somerville, Massachusetts, USA;3. Institute of Statistics, National Tsing Hua University, Hsin‐Chu, Taiwan;4. Department of Environmental Studies, Purchase College (SUNY), Purchase, New York, USA;5. College of the Atlantic, ME, USA;6. International Institute for Sustainability, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil;7. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 0626‐3043, USA |
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| Abstract: | Whether successional forests converge towards an equilibrium in species composition remains an elusive question, hampered by high idiosyncrasy in successional dynamics. Based on long‐term tree monitoring in second‐growth (SG) and old‐growth (OG) forests in Costa Rica, we show that patterns of convergence between pairs of forest stands depend upon the relative abundance of species exhibiting distinct responses to the successional gradient. For instance, forest generalists contributed to convergence between SG and OG forests, whereas rare species and old‐growth specialists were a source of divergence. Overall, opposing trends in taxonomic similarity among different subsets of species nullified each other, producing a net outcome of stasis over time. Our results offer an explanation for the limited convergence observed between pairwise communities and suggest that rare species and old‐growth specialists may be prone to dispersal limitation, while the dynamics of generalists and second‐growth specialists are more predictable, enhancing resilience in tropical secondary forests. |
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| Keywords: | Determinism life‐history strategies stochasticity succession taxonomic similarity tropical second‐growth forests |
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