Persistence of Neighborhood Demographic Influences over Long Phylogenetic Distances May Help Drive Post-Speciation Adaptation in Tropical Forests.

ABSTRACT: Studies of forest dynamics plots (FDPs) have revealed a variety of negative density-dependent (NDD) demographic interactions, especially among conspecific trees. These interactions can affect growth rate, recruitment and mortality, and they play a central role in the maintenance of species diversity in these complex ecosystems. Here we use an equal area annulus (EAA) point-pattern method to comprehensively analyze data from two tropical FDPs, Barro Colorado Island in Panama and Sinharaja in Sri Lanka. We show that these NDD interactions also influence the continued evolutionary diversification of even distantly related tree species in these FDPs. We examine the details of a wide range of these interactions between individual trees and the trees that surround them. All these interactions, a

SUBMITTER: Wills C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4909291 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature