Abstract
Young successional tropical forests are crucial in the global carbon cycle because they can quickly sequester large quantities of atmospheric carbon. However, lianas (woody vines) can significantly decrease biomass accumulation in young regenerating forests. Lianas are abundant in tropical dry forests, and thus we hypothesized that lianas reduce biomass accretion in dry forests. Lianas may be particularly detrimental to the growth of young trees, which are vulnerable to competition from lianas. Alternatively, lianas may have a stronger negative effect on the largest trees because lianas seek the high-light environment at the top of the forest canopy. We tested these hypotheses using a liana-removal experiment in 13 dry forest stands that ranged from 1 to 70 years in southwestern Panama. We measured biomass accumulation annually for more than 10,000 stems from 2013 to 2017. Contrary to our expectations, liana removal had no effect on tree biomass accumulation across our successional forests and throughout our study period. Liana removal did not benefit smaller trees or larger trees. Lianas did not increase biomass accumulation on recruits, and did not increase biomass loss due to mortality. Surprisingly, removing lianas had a negative effect on three out of 41 tree species. Lianas had no effect on biomass accumulation and loss, possibly because: (1) trees allocated resources to roots instead of stems, (2) trees and lianas partitioned water, (3) higher irradiance after liana removal reduced soil moisture, or (4) low water availability might have been such a strong stressor that it reduced plant–plant competition.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s Agua Salud Project. We are grateful to the private landowners who allowed us to work on their land. Edwina von Gal and Vernon Scholey provided useful background information and logistical support. We are grateful to the staff of the Achotines Laboratory of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATCC) and Eco Venao for their generosity during field visits. Research was conducted under a series of research permits issued to JSH by the Ministry of the Environment of Panama. This work could not have been completed without the dedication and hard work by numerous individuals participating in field work over the years. We are particularly grateful to Mario Bailón, Andres Hernandez, Carlos Diaz, Johana Balbuena, Anabel Rivas, Guillermo Fernandez, Miguel Nuñez, Edwin Garcia, Cristina Barber, Julia González, Yuriza Guerrero, Oldemar Valdes, Boris Bernal, Avelino Valdes, Erick Díaz, Jeremy La-Che, Megan Walentowski, William Walker, Kenneth Contreras, Silfredo Tascon, Rigoberto Rivera Camaña, Eric Valdes, Edwin Peres and Estrella Yanguas for help with field work. SE-V thanks Katherine Sinacore for invaluable help during data analysis and for logistical support. SE‐V was supported by a fellowship from the Departamento Administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación COLCIENCIAS, and by the Cullman Fellowship from the School of the Environment at Yale University and the New York Botanical Garden. SAS was supported by NSF DEB 1019436 and a Way Klingler Scholarship from Marquette University.
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SE-V, JSH, MvB and SAS conceived and designed the experiment, SE-V, JSH, MvB and SAS collected the data, and SE-V, JSH, MvB and SAS contributed to write the manuscript.
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Estrada-Villegas, S., Hall, J.S., van Breugel, M. et al. Lianas do not reduce tree biomass accumulation in young successional tropical dry forests. Oecologia 195, 1019–1029 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-04877-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-04877-z