Tree Diversity in Tropical Rain Forests: A Validation of the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis
2001
Molino, Jean-François | Sabatier, Daniel | BotAnique et BioinforMatique de l'Architecture des Plantes (UMR AMAP) ; Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (Cirad)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Université Montpellier 2 - Sciences et Techniques (UM2)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD [France-Ouest])-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
International audience
显示更多 [+] 显示较少 [-]英语. The “intermediate disturbance hypothesis,” which postulates maximum diversity at intermediate regimes of disturbance, has never been clearly proved to apply to species-rich tropical forest tree communities and to local-scale canopy disturbances that modify light environments. This hypothesis was tested on a sample of 17,000 trees in a Guianan forest, 10 years after a silvicultural experiment that added to natural treefall gaps a wide range of disturbance intensities. Species richness, standardized to eliminate density effects, peaked at intermediate disturbance levels, particularly when disturbance intensity was estimated through the percentage of stems of strongly light-dependent species.
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