TROPICAL RAINFOREST GAPS AND TREE SPECIES DIVERSITY

1987/11/01 by Julie Sloan Denslow, Julie S. Denslow · 1,266 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · Mathematics · #Agroforestry #Anthropology #Biology #Diversity (politics) #Ecology #Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies #Forest ecology and management #Forestry #Geography #Mathematics #Rainforest #Scarabaeidae Beetle Taxonomy and Biogeography #Sociology #Species diversity #Tree (set theory) #Tropical rainforest

paper · doi:10.1146/annurev.es.18.110187.002243

published in Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 18(1), 431-451 (Annual Reviews)

openalex publication_date 1987/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

Evolutionary hypotheses about how so many species of tropical rainforest trees might have arisen include (a) genetic drift (71), (b) habitat specialization (8) in benign environments, or (c) repeated geographic isolation followed by remixing of species during Pleistocene climatic fluctuations (144). Ecological hypotheses about how these species continue to coexist are often cast into equilibrium or non-equilibrium frameworks: Do tropical forests comprise . . . sets of highly coevolved niche-differentiated tree species in stable or semistable floristic assemblages, or do they consist of . . . diffusely coevolved, broadly generalist species which slowly drift in relative abundance within a few large life-history guilds (67, 102)? In this context, there has been considerable recent interest in the role of adaptations by species to different regeneration sites in structuring plant assemblages in general (83, 84, 86, 141), and tropical tree communities in particular (62, 89, 90, 150). The immediacy of this interest is heightened by rising rates of deforestation throughout the tropics and a critical need for management strategies of the remaining preserves, for ecologically sound harvesting procedures, and for the tools with which to restore degraded forests. Openings in the forest canopy are widely recognized as important for the establishment and growth of rainforest trees (5, 33, 62, 90). Hartshorn (89) suggests that perhaps 75% of the tree species at La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica are dependent on canopy opening for seed germination or for growth beyond sapling size. Similar statements are found in descriptions of forest dynamics in Queensland, Australia (185), Malaysian dipterocarp forests (195), and West African rain forest (108). Demographic studies demon-

Citations

• The Mineralogy, Chemistry, and Physics of Tropical Soils with Variable Charge Clays
• Evidence for the Existence of Three Primary Strategies in Plants and Its Relevance to Ecological and Evolutionary Theory
• A General Hypothesis of Species Diversity
• The Definition of Treefall Gap and Its Effect on Measures of Forest Dynamics

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• Landscape patterns in stand-replacing disturbances across the world’s forests
• Seasonal variation of arthropod abundance in gaps and the understorey of a lowland moist forest in Panama
• Natural disturbance, vegetation patterns and ecological dynamics in tropical montane forests
• The effect of treefall gaps on the understorey structure and composition of the tropical dry forest of Nizanda, Oaxaca, Mexico: implications for forest regeneration
• Long-term environmental change in tropical forests: increasing tree turnover
• Key leaf traits indicative of photosynthetic plasticity in tropical tree species
• Community Structure and Metacommunity Dynamics of Aquatic Invertebrates: a Test of the Neutral Theory
• On the definition of ecological species groups in tropical rain forests
• Seed arrival in tropical forest tree fall gaps
• MULTIPLE BASINS OF ATTRACTION IN A TROPICAL FOREST: EVIDENCE FOR NONEQUILIBRIUM COMMUNITY STRUCTURE
• Spread of invasive ginger Zingiber spectabile (Zingiberaceae) in successional and old-growth tropical forest
• Impacts of civil conflict on primary forest habitat in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1990–2010

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