LTREB Renewal: Woody seedling dynamics in a wet tropical forest & species coexistence

生态学的主要目标之一是了解在特定栖息地或群落中决定物种相对丰度和数量的因素。潮湿的热带森林含有多种多样的树种，并提供了独特的栖息地，可以在其中确定影响哪些树种构成森林的因素。树苗期的生存和生长是关键的瓶颈。植物生命周期的幼苗阶段对病原体和光、养分和水的可用性特别敏感。该项目对哥斯达黎加5个林分的幼苗动态进行了为期12年的研究。在接下来的五年里，收集到的数据将用于构建幼苗生产、分散、生长和存活对光照、土壤养分、病原体和降雨的响应模型。由此产生的模型将区分导致物种共存的三种主要机制，从而有助于解释热带森林中异常高的物种多样性。预测森林对环境变化的反应能力对木材生产、野生动物栖息地和森林碳储存至关重要。这项长期研究的结果将提高人们对热带森林如何响应温度、降雨和养分污染变化而再生的理解。研究生、本科生和高中生将参与研究，获得宝贵的实地经验。该项目将继续为La Selva站现有的研究基础设施做出贡献，为研究地块、数据和分类专业知识提供广泛的访问。该项目的数据将提供给研究界。

One of the major goals of ecology is to understand the factors that determine the relative abundance and number of species in particular habitats or communities. Wet tropical forests contain a great diversity of tree species and provide unique habitats in which to identify the factors that influence which tree species compose a forest. Survival and growth through the tree seedling stage are critical bottlenecks. The seedling phase of a plant's life cycle is especially sensitive to pathogens and to the availability of light, nutrients, and water. This project extends a twelve-year study of seedling dynamics in five forest stands in Costa Rica. Over the next five years, data collected will be used to construct models of seedling production, dispersion, growth and survival in response to light, soil nutrients, pathogens, and rainfall. The resulting models will distinguish among three major mechanisms responsible for species coexistence, and thus help to account for the unusually high species diversity in tropical forests.An ability to predict forest responses to environmental change is critical to timber production, wildlife habitat, and forest carbon storage. Results from this long-term study will improve understanding of how tropical forests regenerate in response to changes in temperature, rainfall, and nutrient pollution. Graduate, undergraduate, and high school students will participate in the research, receiving valuable field experience. The project will continue to contribute to research infrastructure available at La Selva Station, granting wide access to study plots, data, and taxonomic expertise. Data from the project will be available to the research community.