Competition influences tree growth, but not mortality, across environmental gradients in Amazonia and tropical Africa.

ABSTRACT: Competition among trees is an important driver of community structure and dynamics in tropical forests. Neighboring trees may impact an individual tree's growth rate and probability of mortality, but large-scale geographic and environmental variation in these competitive effects has yet to be evaluated across the tropical forest biome. We quantified effects of competition on tree-level basal area growth and mortality for trees ≥10-cm diameter across 151 ~1-ha plots in mature tropical forests in Amazonia and tropical Africa by developing nonlinear models that accounted for wood density, tree size, and neighborhood crowding. Using these models, we assessed how water availability (i.e., climatic water deficit) and soil fertility influenced the predicted plot-level strength of competition (i.e

SUBMITTER: Rozendaal DMA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7379300 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature