Liana Dynamics in Southeast Asia: Causes and Consequences

热带生态系统特别宝贵，不仅因为它们拥有高度的生物多样性，而且还因为它们提供了许多生态系统服务，其中最重要的是碳储存。由于木材采伐、土地使用变化和破碎化，热带森林一直面临巨大压力。此外，越来越多的证据表明，气候变化可能对热带系统产生重大影响。森林退化和气候变化之间的相互作用威胁到热带生态系统的可持续性，需要对森林动态有良好的了解，以便为有效的森林管理和养护工作提供信息。藤本植物是大型木本藤本植物，已被观察到在新热带森林中大量生长，最有可能是由于人类介导的全球变化。它们有可能助长森林退化，因为树木倒下时会导致附带损害，将邻近的树木推倒，使幼苗窒息，使森林再生偏向生长较快的物种，最终降低森林的碳储存能力。因此，泛热带地区对藤本植物动态的了解越来越重要。东南亚的藤本植物特别缺乏研究，本项目旨在填补这一知识空白。对藤本植物覆盖率的分析将确定什么是多样性和丰富度的最佳预测因子，并将稀有与常见以及早期与晚期演替物种进行比较，以确定使藤本植物成功的特征。对非模式生物中的功能元件进行前所未有的大规模测序将提供对藤本植物进化和所采用策略的见解。该项目的其他组成部分将研究藤本植物对碳储存的影响以及棕榈油种植和森林破碎化对藤本植物覆盖的影响

Tropical ecosystems are particularly valuable not only because they harbour high biodiversity, but also because they provide a number of ecosystem services, carbon storage being among the most important ones. Forests in the tropics have been under significant pressure due to timber harvest, land use change and fragmentation. Furthermore, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that climate change is likely to have a significant impapact on tropical systems. The interaction between forest degradation and climate change threatens the sustainability of tropical ecosystems and good knowledge of the forest dynamics is needed to inform effective forest management and conservation efforts. Lianas are large woody vines that have been observed to raise in abundance in neotropical forests most likely due to human-mediated global change. They have the potential to contribute to forest degradation by inducing collateral damage during tree fall by pulling neighbouring trees down, smothering seedlings and biasing forest regeneration towards faster growing species, ultimately reducing the forest capacity to store carbon. Therefore, pantropical understanding of liana dynamics is of increasing importance.Lianas in Southeast Asia have been particularly understudied and this project aims to contribute to filing this knowledge gap. Analysis of liana cover will determine what are the best predictors of diversity and abundance and comparison between is rare vs. common and early vs. late-successional species will pinpoint the traits that make lianas successful. Unprecedented large scale sequencing of functional elements in non-model organisms will provide insights of liana evolution and employed strategies. Further components of the project will look into the impact of liana on carbon storage as well as effect of palm oil cultivation and forest fragmentation on liana cover