Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T10:00:21.993Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fire resistance in a Caribbean dry forest: inferences from the allometry of bark thickness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2014

Brett T. Wolfe ,
Gabriel E. Saldaña Diaz  and
Skip J. Van Bloem
Brett T. Wolfe*
Affiliation:
University of Puerto Rico, Department of Crops and Agroenvironmental Sciences, Call Box 9000, Mayagüez, PR 00681-9000
Gabriel E. Saldaña Diaz
Affiliation:
University of Puerto Rico, Department of Crops and Agroenvironmental Sciences, Call Box 9000, Mayagüez, PR 00681-9000
Skip J. Van Bloem
Affiliation:
University of Puerto Rico, Department of Crops and Agroenvironmental Sciences, Call Box 9000, Mayagüez, PR 00681-9000
*
1Corresponding author. Present address: University of Utah, Department of Biology, 257 South 1400 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84112. Email: btwolfe@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Trees’ resistance to fire-induced mortality increases with bark thickness, which varies widely among species and generally increases with stem diameter. Because dry forests are more fire-prone than wetter forests, bark may be thicker in these forests. However, where disturbances such as hurricanes suppress stem diameter, trees may not obtain fire-resistant bark thickness. In two hurricane-prone Caribbean dry-forest types in Puerto Rico—deciduous forest and scrub forest—we measured bark thickness on 472 stems of 25 species to test whether tree species obtain bark thicknesses that confer fire resistance, whether bark is thicker in the fire-prone scrub forest than in the deciduous forest, and how bark thickness in Caribbean dry forest compares with other tropical ecosystems. Only 5% of stems within a deciduous-forest stand had bark thickness that would provide < 50% probability of top-kill during low-intensity fire. In contrast, thicker-barked trees dominated the scrub forest, suggesting that fires influenced it. Compared with trees of similar diameter in other regions of the tropics, bark in Caribbean dry forest was thinner than in savanna, similar to other seasonally dry forests, and thicker than moist-to-wet forests. Dry-forest species appear to invest more in fire-resistance than species from wetter forests. However, Caribbean dry forests remain highly vulnerable to fire because the trees rarely reach large enough diameters to be fire resistant.

Keywords

fire regimeGuánica Commonwealth Forestgrass invasionsavannatop-killtropical forest
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , March 2014 , pp. 133 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

LITERATURE CITED

AGOSTO DIAZ, R. E. 2008. Human and environmental factors explaining the structural and compositional variability in a sub-tropical dry forest. M.S. thesis, University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez.Google Scholar
BAKER, P. J. & BUNYAVEJCHEWIN, S. 2006. Bark thickness and the influence of forest fire on tree population structures in a seasonal evergreen tropical forest. Natural History Bulletin of the Siam Society 54:215–225.Google Scholar
BARLOW, J., LAGAN, B. O. & PERES, C. A. 2003. Morphological correlates of fire-induced tree mortality in a central Amazonian forest. Journal of Tropical Ecology 19:291–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BOND, W. J. & VAN WILGEN, B. W. 1996. Fire and plants. Chapman and Hall, London. 263 pp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BRANDO, P. M., NEPSTAD, D. C., BALCH, J. K., BOLKER, B., CHRISTMAN, M. C., COE, M. & PUTZ, F. E. 2012. Fire-induced tree mortality in a neotropical forest: the roles of bark traits, tree size, wood density and fire behavior. Global Change Biology 18:630–641.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
COCHRANE, M. A. 2003. Fire science for rainforests. Nature 421:913–919.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
D’ANTONIO, C. M. & VITOUSEK, P. M. 1992. Biological invasions by exotic grasses, the grass fire cycle, and global change. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 23:63–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ERIKSSON, I., TEKETAY, D. & GRANSTROM, A. 2003. Response of plant communities to fire in an Acacia woodland and a dry Afromontane forest, southern Ethiopia. Forest Ecology and Management 177:39–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
EWEL, J. J. & WHITMORE, J. L. 1973. The ecological life zones of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. U.S.D.A. Forest Service Institute of Tropical Forestry, Rio Piedras. 72 pp.Google Scholar
FRANCIS, J. K. & PARROTTA, J. A. 2006. Vegetation response to grazing and planting of Leucaena leucocephala in a Urochloa maximum[sic]-dominated grassland in Puerto Rico. Caribbean Journal of Science 42:67–74.Google Scholar
GLEASON, H. A. & COOK, M. T. 1927. Plant ecology of Porto Rico. New York Academy of Sciences, New York. 173 pp.Google Scholar
HEGDE, V., CHANDRAN, M. D. S. & GADGIL, M. 1998. Variation in bark thickness in a tropical forest community of Western Ghats in India. Functional Ecology 12:313–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HOFFMANN, W. A. & SOLBRIG, O. T. 2003. The role of topkill in the differential response of savanna woody species to fire. Forest Ecology and Management 180:273–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HOFFMANN, W. A., ORTHEN, B. & NASCIMENTO, P. K. V. 2003. Comparative fire ecology of tropical savanna and forest trees. Functional Ecology 17:720–726.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HOFFMANN, W. A., ADASME, R., HARIDASAN, M., DE CARVALHO, M. T., GEIGER, E. L., PEREIRA, M. A. B., GOTSCH, S. G. & FRANCO, A. C. 2009. Tree topkill, not mortality, governs the dynamics of savanna–forest boundaries under frequent fire in central Brazil. Ecology 90:1326–1337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HOFFMANN, W. A., GEIGER, E. L., GOTSCH, S. G., ROSSATTO, R., SILVA, L. C. R., LAU, O. L., HARIDASAN, M. & FRANCO, A. C. 2012. Ecological thresholds at the savanna–forest boundary: how plant traits, resources and fire govern the distribution of tropical biomes. Ecology Letters 15:759–768.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
HOPKINS, B. & JENKIN, R. N. 1963. Vegetation of the Olokemeji Forest Reserve, Nigeria: I. General features of the reserve and the research sites. Journal of Ecology 50:559–598.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KEELEY, J. E. & BOND, W. J. 2001. On incorporating fire into our thinking about natural ecosystems: a response to Saha and Howe. American Naturalist 158:664–670.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
KOONCE, A. L. & GONZÁLEZ-CABÁN, A. 1990. Social and ecological effects of fire in Central America. Pp. 135–158 in Goldammer, J. G. (ed.). Fire in the tropical biota. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LAWES, M. J., ADIE, H., RUSSELL-SMITH, J., MURPHY, B. & MIDGLEY, J. J. 2011. How do small savanna trees avoid stem mortality by fire? The roles of stem diameter, height and bark thickness. Ecosphere 2:art42.Google Scholar
LAWES, M. J., MIDGLEY, J. J. & CLARKE, P. J. 2012. Costs and benefits of relative bark thickness in relation to fire damage: a savanna/forest contrast. Journal of Ecology 101:517–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LOPEZ, O. R., KURSAR, T. A., COCHARD, H. & TYREE, M. T. 2005. Interspecific variation in xylem vulnerability to cavitation among tropical tree and shrub species. Tree Physiology 25:1553–1562.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
LUGO, A. E., GONZALEZ-LIBOY, J. A., CINTRON, B. & DUGGER, K. 1978. Structure, productivity, and transpiration of a sub-tropical dry forest in Puerto Rico. Biotropica 10:278–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MIDDLETON, B. A., SANCHEZ-ROJAS, E., SUEDMEYER, B. & MICHELS, A. 1997. Fire in a tropical dry forest of Central America: a natural part of the disturbance regime? Biotropica 29:515–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MILES, L., NEWTON, A. C., DEFRIES, R. S., RAVILIOUS, C., MAY, I., BLYTH, S., KAPOS, V. & GORDON, J. E. 2006. A global overview of the conservation status of tropical dry forests. Journal of Biogeography 33:491–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MURPHY, P. G. & LUGO, A. E. 1986a. Ecology of tropical dry forest. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 17:67–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MURPHY, P. G. & LUGO, A. E. 1986b. Structure and biomass of a subtropical dry forest in Puerto Rico. Biotropica 18:89–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MURPHY, P. G., LUGO, A. E., MURPHY, A. J. & NEPSTAD, D. C. 1995. The dry forests of Puerto Rico's south coast. Pp. 178–209 in Lugo, A. E. & Lowe, C. (eds.). Tropical forests: management and ecology. Springer-Verlag, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
PAINE, C. E. T., STAHL, C., COURTOIS, E. A., PATIÑO, S., SARMIENTO, C. & BARALOTO, C. 2010. Functional explanations for variation in bark thickness in tropical rain forest trees. Functional Ecology 24:1202–1210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
PINARD, M. A. & HUFFMAN, J. 1997. Fire resistance and bark properties of trees in a seasonally dry forest in eastern Bolivia. Journal of Tropical Ecology 13:727–740.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
RAMJOHN, I. A. 2004. The role of disturbed Caribbean dry forest fragments in the survival of native plant diversity. Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, East Lansing.Google Scholar
SANTIAGO-GARCIA, R. J., MOLINA COLÓN, S., SOLLINS, P. & VAN BLOEM, S. 2009. The role of nurse trees in mitigating fire effects of tropical dry forest restoration: a case study. Ambio 27:604–608.Google Scholar
SCHUUR, E. A. G. 2003. Productivity and global climate revisited: the sensitivity of tropical forest growth to precipitation. Ecology 84:1165–1170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SLIK, J. W. F., BREMAN, F. C., BERNARD, C., VAN BEEK, M., CANNON, C. H., EICHHORN, K. A. O. & SIDIYASA, K. 2010. Fire as a selective force in a Bornean tropical everwet forest. Oecologia 164:841–849.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
STEPHENS, S. L. & LIBBY, W. J. 2006. Anthropogenic fire and bark thickness in coastal and island pine populations from Alta and Baja California. Journal of Biogeography 33:648–652.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
UHL, C. & KAUFFMAN, J. B. 1990. Deforestation, fire susceptibility, and potential tree responses to fire in the eastern Amazon. Ecology 71:437–449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
VAN BLOEM, S. J., MURPHY, P. G. & LUGO, A. E. 2003. Subtropical dry forest trees with no apparent damage sprout following a hurricane. Tropical Ecology 44:137–145.Google Scholar
VAN BLOEM, S. J., LUGO, A. E. & MURPHY, P. G. 2006. Structural response of Caribbean dry forests to hurricane winds: a case study from Guánica Forest, Puerto Rico. Journal of Biogeography 33:517–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
VAN NIEUWSTADT, M. G. L. 2002. Trial by fire – postfire development of a tropical dipterocarp forest. Ph.D. thesis, Utrecht University, Utrecht.Google Scholar
WANG, G. G. & WANGEN, S. R. 2011. Does frequent burning affect longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) bark thickness? Canadian Journal of Forest Research 41:1562–1565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WOLFE, B. T. & VAN BLOEM, S. J. 2012. Subtropical dry forest regeneration in grass-invaded areas of Puerto Rico: understanding why Leucaena leucocephala dominates and native species fail. Forest Ecology and Management 267:253–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
XIAO, X., WHITE, E. P., HOOTEN, M. B. & DURHAM, S. L. 2011. On the use of log-transformation vs. nonlinear regression for analyzing biological power laws. Ecology 92:1887–1894.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed