In this study, we used a replicated factorial design to separate the individual and interacting effects of two main components of a severe hurricane – canopy opening and green debris deposition on leaf litter decay in the tabonuco forest in the Luquillo Mountains of Puerto Rico.
However, intermediate canopies did not differ significantly from open canopies.
Given that levels of liana infestation are increasing in Neotropical forests and can result in high tree mortality, the extent of high-to-severe liana canopy cover across the landscape may have broad implications for ecosystem function and forest carbon storage.
Fern community structure, growth and spore production were monitored for two years before and five years after a large-scale experiment that simulated two key components of severe hurricane disturbance: canopy openness and debris deposition.
We experimentally manipulated key components of severe hurricane disturbance, canopy openness and detritus deposition, to determine the independent and interactive effects of these components on tree recruitment, forest structure, and diversity in a wet tropical forest in the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico.
The impact of these events has been severe, with millions of canopy trees dying in nature reserves, where salvage logging was not conducted.
Using the derived liana cover classification map, we show that 6.1%10.2%% of the 1823 ha study site has high-to-severe (50 100%) liana canopy cover.
The more severe the degradation and the canopy damage, the easier it is to accurately map it from satellite observations [25].
It was found that the line differences in LWP and relative water content (RWC) were expressed under both mild and severe stress conditions, regardless of canopy size, tiller number and whether they were mixed with another line with different capacity to maintain LWP.
The more severe the degradation and the canopy damage, the easier it is to accurately map it from satellite observations [ 25].
For example, recent research has documented that species strategies for dealing with wind disturbance vary: some species may lose canopy elements during severe winds to mitigate stress on the main stem, but retain enough elements to recover post-disturbance, while others retain their canopy at higher wind speeds, but risk catastrophic failure if winds become strong enough (Metcalfe et al., 2008).
