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Effects of lianas and Hurricane Wilma on tree damage in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2008

Edgardo I. Garrido-Pérez ,
Juan Manuel Dupuy ,
Rafael Durán-García ,
Mario Ucan-May ,
Stefan A. Schnitzer  and
Gerhard Gerold
Edgardo I. Garrido-Pérez*
Affiliation:
Centro de Investigación Científica de Yucatán (CICY), Calle 43 #130, Colonia Chuburná de Hidalgo, CP 97200, Mérida, Yucatán, México Georg-August Universitaet Geographisches Institut Abt. Landschaftsoekologie, Goettingen, Goldschmidtstr.5, PLZ 37077, Goettingen, Germany
Juan Manuel Dupuy
Affiliation:
Centro de Investigación Científica de Yucatán (CICY), Calle 43 #130, Colonia Chuburná de Hidalgo, CP 97200, Mérida, Yucatán, México
Rafael Durán-García
Affiliation:
Centro de Investigación Científica de Yucatán (CICY), Calle 43 #130, Colonia Chuburná de Hidalgo, CP 97200, Mérida, Yucatán, México
Mario Ucan-May
Affiliation:
Ejido Solferino, Municipio de Lázaro Cárdenas, Quintana Roo, México
Stefan A. Schnitzer
Affiliation:
College of Letters and Science, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA
Gerhard Gerold
Affiliation:
Georg-August Universitaet Geographisches Institut Abt. Landschaftsoekologie, Goettingen, Goldschmidtstr.5, PLZ 37077, Goettingen, Germany
*
1Author for correspondence. Email: egarrid@gwdg.de
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Extract

Climate change may increase the intensity of hurricanes (Emanuel 1987, 2003), and thus the size of disturbance in tropical forests. As a consequence, disturbance-specialist plants, such as lianas, may increase in abundance there (Phillips & Gentry 1994). Putz (1984) hypothesized that lianas create larger treefall gaps by connecting trees together and pulling down multiple trees during storms. This positive-feedback cycle may increase the prevalence of lianas in disturbed tropical forests (Schnitzer & Bongers 2002, Schnitzer & Carson 2001). Alternatively, Putz (1984) proposed that lianas tie and stabilize canopies together, resulting in less disturbance. Forest age may determine the role of lianas during disturbance because liana abundance and composition vary through secondary succession (De Walt et al. 2000, Schnitzer et al. 2000). To test the two hypotheses of Putz (1984), we evaluated the effect of liana cutting between forests of different successional ages on tree damage by hurricane Wilma.

Keywords

canopy stabilityliana cuttingsecondary successiontree-fall gapstropical dry foresttropical storms
Type
Short Communication
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 24 , Issue 5 , September 2008 , pp. 559 - 562
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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