Unraveling the relative role of light and water competition between lianas and trees in tropical forests: A vegetation model analysis.

ABSTRACT: Despite their low contribution to forest carbon stocks, lianas (woody vines) play an important role in the carbon dynamics of tropical forests. As structural parasites, they hinder tree survival, growth and fecundity; hence, they negatively impact net ecosystem productivity and long-term carbon sequestration.Competition (for water and light) drives various forest processes and depends on the local abundance of resources over time. However, evaluating the relative role of resource availability on the interactions between lianas and trees from empirical observations is particularly challenging. Previous approaches have used labour-intensive and ecosystem-scale manipulation experiments, which are infeasible in most situations.We propose to circumvent this challenge by evaluating the uncertain

SUBMITTER: Meunier F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7839527 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature