Woody lianas increase in dominance and maintain compositional integrity across an Amazonian dam-induced fragmented landscape.

ABSTRACT: Tropical forest fragmentation creates insular biological communities that undergo species loss and changes in community composition over time, due to area- and edge-effects. Woody lianas thrive in degraded and secondary forests, due to their competitive advantage over trees in these habitats. Lianas compete both directly and indirectly with trees, increasing tree mortality and turnover. Despite our growing understanding of liana-tree dynamics, we lack detailed knowledge of the assemblage-level responses of lianas themselves to fragmentation, particularly in evergreen tropical forests. We examine the responses of both sapling and mature liana communities to landscape-scale forest insularization induced by a mega hydroelectric dam in the Brazilian Amazon. Detailed field inventories were cond

SUBMITTER: Jones IL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5644977 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature