Nonrandom, diversifying processes are disproportionately strong in the smallest size classes of a tropical forest.

ABSTRACT: A variety of ecological processes influence diversity and species composition in natural communities. Most of these processes, whether abiotic or biotic, differentially filter individuals from birth to death, thereby altering species' relative abundances. Nonrandom outcomes could accrue throughout ontogeny, or the processes that generate them could be particularly influential at certain stages. One long-standing paradigm in tropical forest ecology holds that patterns of relative abundance among mature trees are largely set by processes operating at the earliest life cycle stages. Several studies confirm filtering processes at some stages, but the longevity of large trees makes a rigorous comparison across size classes impossible without long-term demographic data. Here, we use one of the w

SUBMITTER: Green PT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4284543 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature