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Science 23 November 2001:
Vol. 294. no. 5547, pp. 1702 - 1704
DOI: 10.1126/science.1060284
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Reports

Tree Diversity in Tropical Rain Forests: A Validation of the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis

Jean-François Molino,* Daniel Sabatier

The "intermediate disturbance hypothesis," which postulates maximum diversity at intermediate regimes of disturbance, has never been clearly proved to apply to species-rich tropical forest tree communities and to local-scale canopy disturbances that modify light environments. This hypothesis was tested on a sample of 17,000 trees in a Guianan forest, 10 years after a silvicultural experiment that added to natural treefall gaps a wide range of disturbance intensities. Species richness, standardized to eliminate density effects, peaked at intermediate disturbance levels, particularly when disturbance intensity was estimated through the percentage of stems of strongly light-dependent species.

Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, c/o Cirad-forêt, Campus International de Baillarguet, TA10/D, 34398 Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: molino{at}mpl.ird.fr

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Seed size, seedling morphology, and response to deep shade and damage in neotropical rain forest trees.
C. Baraloto and P.-M. Forget (2007)
Am. J. Botany 94, 901-911
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Humped Pattern of Diversity: Fact or Artifact?.
M. Arim, O. Barbosa, J.-F. Molino, and D. Sabatier (2002)
Science 297, 1763a-1763
   Full Text »    PDF »


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