1. Logging roads can trigger tropical forest degradation by reducing the integrity of the ecosystem and providing access for encroachment. Therefore, road-management is crucial in reconciling selective logging and biodiversity conservation. Most logging roads are abandoned after timber harvesting, h

Are mature forests carbon limited? To explore this question, we exposed ca. 110-year-old, 40-m tall Picea abies trees to a 550-ppm CO2 concentration in a mixed lowland forest in NW Switzerland. The site receives substantial soluble nitrogen (N) via atmospheric deposition, and thus, trees are unlikel

Seed size and toughness affect seed predators, and size-dependent investment in mechanical defence could affect relationships between seed size and predation. We tested how seed toughness and mechanical defence traits (tissue density and protective tissue content) are related to seed size among trop

Predicting long-term trends in forest growth requires accurate characterisation of how the relationship between forest productivity and climatic stress varies across climatic regimes. Using a network of over two million tree-ring observations spanning North America and a space-for-time substitution

Many woody plants resprout to restore above-ground biomass after disturbances or to survive in stressful environments. Resprouting requires carbohydrate storage, but the general relationship between resource allocation patterns and resprouting ability remains unclear because it can be influenced by

Old-growth temperate rainforests are, per unit area, the largest and most long-lived stores of carbon in the terrestrial biosphere, but their carbon dynamics have rarely been described. The endangered Fitzroya cupressoides forests of southern South America include stands that are probably the oldest

Nestedness and modularity are measures of ecological networks whose causative effects are little understood. We analyzed antagonistic plant–herbivore bipartite networks using common gardens in two contrasting environments comprised of aspen trees with differing evolutionary histories of defence agai

Genetic parameters of Picea abies resistance to the white pine weevil (Pissodes strobi Peck) were estimated from 193 full-sib and 166 half-sib families in six 10-year-old progeny trials. The estimated family and individual heritability values for the cumulative weevil attack rate between ages 6 and

Accurately monitoring tropical forest carbon stocks is an outstanding challenge. Allometric models that consider tree diameter, height and wood density as predictors are currently used in most tropical forest carbon studies. In particular, a pantropical biomass model has been widely used for approxi

Large uncertainties characterize forest development under global climate change. Although recent studies have found widespread increased tree mortality, the patterns and processes associated with tree death remain poorly understood, thus restricting accurate mortality predictions. Yet, projections o

Growth and stem straightness traits of 29 Pinus caribaea var. hondurensis × Pinus tecunumanii (PCH × PTEC) and 26 P. caribaea var. hondurensis × Pinus oocarpa (PCH × POOC) hybrid pair-crosses plus a total of 16 intraspecific families were assessed at ages 5, 8 and 15 years from planting at two sites

Distributions of foliar nutrients across forest canopies can give insight into their plant functional diversity and improve our understanding of biogeochemical cycling. We used airborne remote sensing and Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR) to quantify canopy foliar nitrogen (N) across ~164 km2

Many morphological, physiological and ecological traits of trees scale with diameter, shaping the structure and function of forest ecosystems. Understanding the mechanistic basis for such scaling relationships is key to understanding forests globally and their role in Earth's changing climate system

Mixed-severity fire regimes may be the most extensive yet poorly understood fire regimes of western North America. Understanding their long-term spatiotemporal dynamics is central to debates regarding altered fire regimes and the need for restoration in the context of changing climate and nearly a c

Mixed-severity fire regimes may be the most extensive yet poorly understood fire regimes of western North America. Understanding their long-term spatiotemporal dynamics is central to debates regarding altered fire regimes and the need for restoration in the context of changing climate and nearly a c

1. Tropical tree species adapted to high wind environments might be expected to differ systematically in terms of stem allometry and life-history patterns, as compared with species found in less windy forests. We quantified height-diameter (H-D) allometries and relative size at onset of maturity (RS

The seed-to-seedling transition constitutes a critical bottleneck in the life history of plants and represents a major determinant of species composition and abundance. However, we have surprisingly little knowledge regarding the forces driving this ontogenetic transition. Here we utilize informatio

1. Tropical grasses fuel the majority of fires on Earth. In fire-prone landscapes, enhanced flammability may be adaptive for grasses via the maintenance of an open canopy and an increase in spatiotemporal opportunities for recruitment and regeneration. In addition, by burning intensely but briefly,

Variation in wood specific gravity (WSG) within and across species of tropical trees is poorly studied in relation to vegetation change during tropical forest succession. We investigated WSG of 91 species in eight long-term plots along a successional chronosequence in northeastern Costa Rica. Radial

1. Evaluating climate effects on plant-soil interactions in terrestrial ecosystems remains challenging due to the fact that floristic composition co-varies with climate, particularly along rainfall gradients. It is difficult to separate effects of precipitation per se from those mediated indirectly