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Species Diversity of Canopy Versus Understory Trees in a Neotropical Forest: Implications for Forest Structure, Function and Monitoring

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Abstract

Species composition and diversity of the canopy layer of tropical forests have rarely been described, yet they are important to many aspects of ecosystem structure and function. Species composition was compared among canopy trees (defined as sun-exposed crowns), understory trees, trees ≥10-cm diameter at breast height (DBH), and the tree community as a whole in a Neotropical moist forest. High-resolution stereophotographs were used to map all individual canopy tree crowns in 8.6 ha of a 50-ha forest dynamics plot on Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama. The canopy was found to have high species diversity in relation to the understory and the whole forest. Only 5% of the stems were found in the canopy, but it contained 70% of the species. Diversity, standardized by stem count, for the canopy (≈135 species per 1000 trees) was higher than that of the forest as a whole (≈108 species per 1000 trees), and species composition was different between the two communities. Although only 50% of trees ≥10-cm DBH, the typical size range used in many forest inventories, were in the canopy, the species diversity and composition of the canopy and trees ≥10-cm DBH were nearly identical. The percentage of gap species in the canopy increased with tree size, providing evidence of the dynamic nature of the BCI forest. To the degree that tree function, such as carbon uptake and transpiration, vary among species, the rarified species richness of the canopy will generate high functional diversity at local-to-landscape scales.

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Acknowledgments

Richard Grotefendt of Grotefendt Photogrammetric Services took and processed the stereo photographs and assisted with crown digitizing. Andrew Hida provided much of the field work for the stereo photographs. The stereo photograph collection, field-truthing and analysis were supported under a NASA Earth Systems Science Fellowship and Center for Tropical Forest Science (CTFS) research grant. The BCI forest dynamics research project was made possible by the National Science Foundation grants to Stephen P. Hubbell, and supports from the Center for Tropical Forest Science, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Small World Institute Fund, and numerous private individuals, and through the hard work of over 100 people from 10 countries over the last two decades. The plot project is part of CTFS, a global network of large-scale demographic tree plots.

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  1. School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, 32611, USA

    Stephanie A. Bohlman

  2. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Ancon, Republic of Panama

    Stephanie A. Bohlman

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Bohlman, S.A. Species Diversity of Canopy Versus Understory Trees in a Neotropical Forest: Implications for Forest Structure, Function and Monitoring. Ecosystems 18, 658–670 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-015-9854-0

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