Abstract

NORDEN, Natalia. On the reasons that natural regeneration is important for species coexistence in tropical forests. Colomb. for. [online]. 2014, vol.17, n.2, pp.247-261. ISSN 0120-0739.  https://doi.org/10.14483/udistrital.jour.colomb.for.2014.2.a08.

Plant regeneration plays a critical role in the maintenance of species diversity in tropical rainforests. This is a multistage process, including seed production, dispersal, germination and subsequent seedling establishment. All these stages represent major bottlenecks in plant demography, as early stages in the plant cycle (seeds and seedlings) are the most vulnerable to environmental hazards, and are therefore subject to high mortality risks. The outcome of these ecological filters will determine not only seedling spatial distribution, but also the potential area of tree distribution. Seed dispersal and subsequent seedling establishment therefore play a critical role in the structuring of tree communities. Here, I review the main four ecological processes driving seedling recruitment in tropical forests. First, dispersal limitation is the failure of seeds to reach suitable microsites for seedling establishment. Once this filter is overcome, environmental factors can considerably affect seedling spatial distribution. Temporal fluctuations in these processes result in an important variation in recruitment success over time, and add a stochastic component to seedling regeneration. Finally, negative-density dependence regulates species relative abundance in the seedling layer by limiting conspecific recruitment through the attack of pathogen, fungi and herbivores.

Keywords : tropical forests; seed dispersal; environmental heterogeneity; regeneration.

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