Publication Details

Category Text Publication
Reference Category Journals
DOI 10.1098/rspb.2014.0922
Title (Primary) Stochastically driven adult–recruit associations of tree species on Barro Colorado Island
Author Getzin, S.; Wiegand, T.; Hubbell, S.P.
Source Titel Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences
Year 2014
Department OESA
Volume 281
Issue 1790
Page From art. 20140922
Language englisch
Keywords Berman test; habitat association; life trait; pattern reconstruction; point pattern analysis; segregation
UFZ wide themes RU5;
Abstract The spatial placement of recruits around adult conspecifics represents the accumulated outcome of several pattern-forming processes and mechanisms such as primary and secondary seed dispersal, habitat associations or Janzen–Connell effects. Studying the adult–recruit relationship should therefore allow the derivation of specific hypotheses on the processes shaping population and community dynamics. We analysed adult–recruit associations for 65 tree species taken from six censuses of the 50 ha neotropical forest plot on Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama. We used point pattern analysis to test, at a range of neighbourhood scales, for spatial independence between recruits and adults, to assess the strength and type of departure from independence, and its relationship with species properties. Positive associations expected to prevail due to dispersal limitation occurred only in 16% of all cases; instead a majority of species showed spatial independence (≈73%). Independence described the placement of recruits around conspecific adults in good approximation, although we found weak and noisy signals of species properties related to seed dispersal. We hypothesize that spatial mechanisms with strong stochastic components such as animal seed dispersal overpower the pattern-forming effects of dispersal limitation, density dependence and habitat association, or that some of the pattern-forming processes cancel out each other.
Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=15320
Getzin, S., Wiegand, T., Hubbell, S.P. (2014):
Stochastically driven adult–recruit associations of tree species on Barro Colorado Island
Proc. R. Soc. B-Biol. Sci. 281 (1790), art. 20140922 10.1098/rspb.2014.0922