Collaborative Research: Mechanisms Influencing Seedling Recruitment and Establishment in a Fragmented Amazonian Landscape

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Deforestation in the tropics is continuing at rates that lack historical precedent, resulting in the fragmentation of species-rich rain forests. One of the most common consequences of fragmentation is reduced seedling establishment, particularly for species found in the forest understory. This proposal has two objectives. First, Bruna and Uriarte will determine how safe-site and seed limitation interact to influence the recruitment of Heliconia acuminata, an Amazonian understory plant. Second, the project will ascertain how these processes are altered in forest fragments. These objectives will be addressed using field studies coupled with an innovative spatially-explicit modeling framework. Despite ample evidence that the recruitment of shade-tolerant plant species declines in forest fragments, almost nothing is known about the mechanisms by which habitat fragmentation influences plant recruitment. By advancing our understanding of these mechanisms, this work will help improve management and conservation efforts for tropical forests. Furthermore, this study provides a unique opportunity to investigate a central issue in plant ecology with understory herbs, a group of plants that is ecologically critical but conspicuously understudied. Finally it will advance the career of two minority scientists and provide support for undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers to study the ecology of Amazonian ecosystems.