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The demography of a dominant Amazon liana species exhibits little environmental sensitivity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2015

Luciana de Campos Franci ,
Jens-Christian Svenning ,
Henrik Balslev ,
Fernando Roberto Martins  and
Jacob Nabe-Nielsen
Luciana de Campos Franci*
Affiliation:
Department of Plant Biology, Ecology Graduate Program, Institute of Biology, P.O. Box 6109, University of Campinas – UNICAMP, 13083–970 Campinas, SP, Brazil
Jens-Christian Svenning
Affiliation:
Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 114, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
Henrik Balslev
Affiliation:
Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 114, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
Fernando Roberto Martins
Affiliation:
Department of Plant Biology, Institute of Biology, P.O. Box 6109, University of Campinas – UNICAMP, 13083–970 Campinas, SP, Brazil
Jacob Nabe-Nielsen
Affiliation:
Section for Marine Mammal Research, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark
*
1Corresponding author: lucianafranci@gmail.com
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Abstract:

Despite its high plant diversity, the Amazon forest is dominated by a limited number of highly abundant, oligarchic tree and liana species. The high diversity can be related to specific habitat requirements in many of the less common species, but fewer studies have investigated the characteristics of the dominant species. To test how environmental variation may contribute to the success of dominant species we investigated whether the vital rates of the abundant liana Machaerium cuspidatum is sensitive to canopy height, topographic steepness, vegetation density, soil components and floristic composition across an Ecuadorian Amazon forest. The population was inventoried in 1998 and in 2009. Plants were divided into seedling-sized individuals, non-climbers and climbers. Out of 448 seedling-sized plants 421 died, 539 of 732 non-climbers died, and 107 of 198 climbers died. There was weak positive effect of dense understorey on the relative growth rate of climbers. The mortality of seedling-sized plants was higher in areas with intermediate slope, but for larger plants mortality was not related to environmental variation. The limited sensitivity of the vital rates to environmental gradients in the area suggests that ecological generalism contributes to the success of this dominant Amazonian liana.

Keywords

ecological generalismlianamortalityrelative growth ratetropical rain forestwoody climbers
Type
Short Communication
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 79 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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