Abstract
Lightning strikes kill hundreds of millions of trees annually, but their role in shaping tree life history and diversity is largely unknown. Here, we use data from a unique lightning location system to show that some individual trees counterintuitively benefit from being struck by lightning. Lightning killed 56% of 93 directly struck trees and caused an average of 41% crown dieback among the survivors. However, among these struck trees, 10 direct strikes caused negligible damage to Dipteryx oleifera trees while killing 78% of their lianas and 2.1 Mg of competitor tree biomass. Nine trees of other long-lived taxa survived lightning with similar benefits. On average, a D. oleifera tree > 60 cm in diameter is struck by lightning at least five times during its lifetime, conferring these benefits repeatedly. We estimate that the ability to survive lightning increases lifetime fecundity 14-fold, largely because of reduced competition from lianas and neighboring trees. Moreover, the unusual heights and wide crowns of D. oleifera increase the probability of a direct strike by 49–68% relative to trees of the same diameter with average allometries. These patterns suggest that lightning plays an underappreciated role in tree competition, life history strategies, and species coexistence.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1554-1566 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | New Phytologist |
| Volume | 246 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 2025 |
Funding
We thank Melissa Cano and the other staff of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute for logistical support. We thank the Cary Institute Terrestrial Ecosystem Ecology group for their insightful comments. We thank Sarah Friedrich for composing the conceptual figure. This work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (DEB-1354060, DEB-1655346, and DEB-2213246 to SPY, DEB-1354510, DEB-1655554, and DEB-2213247 to PMB, and DEB-2213245, DEB-2241507, and GRF-2015188266 to EMG), the National Geographic Society (9703-15 to EMG), and a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Tupper Postdoctoral Fellowship to EMG. KCC was supported as part of the Next Generation Ecosystem Experiments-Tropics, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research. We thank Melissa Cano and the other staff of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute for logistical support. We thank the Cary Institute Terrestrial Ecosystem Ecology group for their insightful comments. We thank Sarah Friedrich for composing the conceptual figure. This work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (DEB‐1354060, DEB‐1655346, and DEB‐2213246 to SPY, DEB‐1354510, DEB‐1655554, and DEB‐2213247 to PMB, and DEB‐2213245, DEB‐2241507, and GRF‐2015188266 to EMG), the National Geographic Society (9703‐15 to EMG), and a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Tupper Postdoctoral Fellowship to EMG. KCC was supported as part of the Next Generation Ecosystem Experiments‐Tropics, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research.
Keywords
- competition
- lianas
- species coexistence
- tree mortality
- tropical forest