Soils and topography control natural disturbance rates and thereby forest structure in a lowland tropical landscape

K. C. Cushman; Matteo Detto; Milton García; Helene C. Muller-Landau

doi:10.1111/ele.13978

Soils and topography control natural disturbance rates and thereby forest structure in a lowland tropical landscape

K. C. Cushman, Matteo Detto, Milton García, Helene C. Muller-Landau

Research output: Contribution to journal › Letter › peer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

Tree mortality is a major control over tropical forest carbon stocks globally but the strength of associations between abiotic drivers and tree mortality within forested landscapes is poorly understood. Here, we used repeat drone photogrammetry across 1500 ha of forest in Central Panama over 5 years to quantify spatial variation in canopy disturbance rates and its predictors. We identified 11,153 canopy disturbances greater than 25 m² in area, including treefalls, large branchfalls and standing dead trees, affecting 1.9% of area per year. Soil type, forest age and topography explained up to 46%–67% of disturbance rate variation at spatial grains of 58–64 ha, with higher rates in older forests, steeper slopes and local depressions. Furthermore, disturbance rates predicted the proportion of low canopy area across the landscape, and mean canopy height in old growth forests. Thus abiotic factors drive variation in disturbance rates and thereby forest structure at landscape scales.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1126-1138
Number of pages	13
Journal	Ecology Letters
Volume	25
Issue number	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13978
State	Published - May 2022
Externally published	Yes

Funding

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; KCC was also supported by the Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program; MD was supported by the Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton University; data collection was supported by a Smithsonian Institution Competitive Grants Program for Science award to HCM. The authors thank Jonathan Dandois and Ryan Nolin for early contributions to the BCI drone project, Sam Grubinger and Milton Solano for advice on photogrammetry processing; Pablo Ramos and Paulino Villarreal for assistance collecting drone images; and Raquel Araujo, Carlos Celes, Ricardo Dalagnol, Evan Gora and Michael Keller for feedback on earlier versions of this work.

Keywords

canopy gaps
disturbance
drones
forest carbon
forest dynamics
forest structure
photogrammetry
tropical forest

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10.1111/ele.13978

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title = "Soils and topography control natural disturbance rates and thereby forest structure in a lowland tropical landscape",

abstract = "Tree mortality is a major control over tropical forest carbon stocks globally but the strength of associations between abiotic drivers and tree mortality within forested landscapes is poorly understood. Here, we used repeat drone photogrammetry across 1500 ha of forest in Central Panama over 5 years to quantify spatial variation in canopy disturbance rates and its predictors. We identified 11,153 canopy disturbances greater than 25 m2 in area, including treefalls, large branchfalls and standing dead trees, affecting 1.9% of area per year. Soil type, forest age and topography explained up to 46%–67% of disturbance rate variation at spatial grains of 58–64 ha, with higher rates in older forests, steeper slopes and local depressions. Furthermore, disturbance rates predicted the proportion of low canopy area across the landscape, and mean canopy height in old growth forests. Thus abiotic factors drive variation in disturbance rates and thereby forest structure at landscape scales.",

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doi = "10.1111/ele.13978",

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AU - Cushman, K. C.

AU - Detto, Matteo

AU - García, Milton

AU - Muller-Landau, Helene C.

PY - 2022/5

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N2 - Tree mortality is a major control over tropical forest carbon stocks globally but the strength of associations between abiotic drivers and tree mortality within forested landscapes is poorly understood. Here, we used repeat drone photogrammetry across 1500 ha of forest in Central Panama over 5 years to quantify spatial variation in canopy disturbance rates and its predictors. We identified 11,153 canopy disturbances greater than 25 m2 in area, including treefalls, large branchfalls and standing dead trees, affecting 1.9% of area per year. Soil type, forest age and topography explained up to 46%–67% of disturbance rate variation at spatial grains of 58–64 ha, with higher rates in older forests, steeper slopes and local depressions. Furthermore, disturbance rates predicted the proportion of low canopy area across the landscape, and mean canopy height in old growth forests. Thus abiotic factors drive variation in disturbance rates and thereby forest structure at landscape scales.

AB - Tree mortality is a major control over tropical forest carbon stocks globally but the strength of associations between abiotic drivers and tree mortality within forested landscapes is poorly understood. Here, we used repeat drone photogrammetry across 1500 ha of forest in Central Panama over 5 years to quantify spatial variation in canopy disturbance rates and its predictors. We identified 11,153 canopy disturbances greater than 25 m2 in area, including treefalls, large branchfalls and standing dead trees, affecting 1.9% of area per year. Soil type, forest age and topography explained up to 46%–67% of disturbance rate variation at spatial grains of 58–64 ha, with higher rates in older forests, steeper slopes and local depressions. Furthermore, disturbance rates predicted the proportion of low canopy area across the landscape, and mean canopy height in old growth forests. Thus abiotic factors drive variation in disturbance rates and thereby forest structure at landscape scales.

KW - canopy gaps

KW - disturbance

KW - drones

KW - forest carbon

KW - forest dynamics

KW - forest structure

KW - photogrammetry

KW - tropical forest

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ER -

Soils and topography control natural disturbance rates and thereby forest structure in a lowland tropical landscape

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Keywords

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