Novel Fires Shift Biological Legacies Away From Natural Regeneration in Caribbean Tropical Dry Forest

IF 2.2 3区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY

Journal of Vegetation Science Pub Date : 2025-04-17 DOI:10.1111/jvs.70030

Tristan A. P. Allerton, Skip J. Van Bloem, Raphaël J. Manlay

{"title":"Novel Fires Shift Biological Legacies Away From Natural Regeneration in Caribbean Tropical Dry Forest","authors":"Tristan A. P. Allerton, Skip J. Van Bloem, Raphaël J. Manlay","doi":"10.1111/jvs.70030","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div>\n \n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Aims</h3>\n \n <p>Understanding ecosystem resilience to environmental change requires evaluating how novel disturbances affect biological legacies that influence regeneration. Legacies that help maintain conditions for recovery may be lost if disturbance regimes change and species lack the necessary adaptive responses. This study assesses the short- and longer-term impacts of fire in Caribbean tropical dry forests with limited burn history to determine their resilience and identify functional traits predicting postfire resprouting strategies.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Location</h3>\n \n <p>The study was conducted in tropical dry forests of SW Puerto Rico along a 29-year postfire chronosequence.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Methods</h3>\n \n <p>We examined community-level measures of structure, composition, diversity, and resprouting of woody plants in sites ranging from 2 months to 29 years postfire, comparing them to mature forests. Additionally, we tested whether functional traits—relative bark thickness, specific leaf area, and tree size—could predict postfire resprouting strategies.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Results</h3>\n \n <p>Tropical dry forest sites with limited burn history exhibited little structural resistance to fire, though significant basal resprouting was observed among tree communities. Over the long term, the chronosequence did not show recovery trends in structural, compositional, or diversity metrics toward mature forest conditions. Fire negatively impacted biological legacies important to forest regeneration, including reducing canopy density, enhancing abiotic stressors, and creating conditions conducive to exotic grass invasion and recurring fire. Functional traits such as relative bark thickness, specific leaf area, and stem number were key predictors of resprouting strategies, highlighting diverse regeneration responses among Caribbean tropical dry forest species.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Conclusions</h3>\n \n <p>Puerto Rican tropical dry forest is not resilient to fire, as it disrupts biological legacies critical for regeneration and promotes transitions to degraded states that are difficult to restore. While resprouting remains a postfire legacy, fire alters ecosystem dynamics in ways that challenge long-term recovery. A conceptual model is proposed to illustrate how fire disrupts regeneration processes in Caribbean tropical dry forest.</p>\n </section>\n </div>","PeriodicalId":49965,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Vegetation Science","volume":"36 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Vegetation Science","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jvs.70030","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ECOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Aims

Understanding ecosystem resilience to environmental change requires evaluating how novel disturbances affect biological legacies that influence regeneration. Legacies that help maintain conditions for recovery may be lost if disturbance regimes change and species lack the necessary adaptive responses. This study assesses the short- and longer-term impacts of fire in Caribbean tropical dry forests with limited burn history to determine their resilience and identify functional traits predicting postfire resprouting strategies.

Location

The study was conducted in tropical dry forests of SW Puerto Rico along a 29-year postfire chronosequence.

Methods

We examined community-level measures of structure, composition, diversity, and resprouting of woody plants in sites ranging from 2 months to 29 years postfire, comparing them to mature forests. Additionally, we tested whether functional traits—relative bark thickness, specific leaf area, and tree size—could predict postfire resprouting strategies.

Results

Tropical dry forest sites with limited burn history exhibited little structural resistance to fire, though significant basal resprouting was observed among tree communities. Over the long term, the chronosequence did not show recovery trends in structural, compositional, or diversity metrics toward mature forest conditions. Fire negatively impacted biological legacies important to forest regeneration, including reducing canopy density, enhancing abiotic stressors, and creating conditions conducive to exotic grass invasion and recurring fire. Functional traits such as relative bark thickness, specific leaf area, and stem number were key predictors of resprouting strategies, highlighting diverse regeneration responses among Caribbean tropical dry forest species.

Conclusions

Puerto Rican tropical dry forest is not resilient to fire, as it disrupts biological legacies critical for regeneration and promotes transitions to degraded states that are difficult to restore. While resprouting remains a postfire legacy, fire alters ecosystem dynamics in ways that challenge long-term recovery. A conceptual model is proposed to illustrate how fire disrupts regeneration processes in Caribbean tropical dry forest.

Abstract Image

查看原文本刊更多论文

加勒比热带干燥森林的新型火灾使生物遗产远离自然再生

了解生态系统对环境变化的恢复能力需要评估新的干扰如何影响影响再生的生物遗产。如果干扰制度发生变化，物种缺乏必要的适应性反应，有助于维持恢复条件的遗产可能会丢失。本研究评估了火灾对加勒比海热带干燥森林的短期和长期影响，以确定其恢复力，并确定预测火灾后再生策略的功能特征。该研究是在波多黎各西南部的热带干燥森林中进行的，沿着火灾后29年的时间顺序进行。方法在火灾发生后2个月至29年的不同地点，对木本植物的群落结构、组成、多样性和再生能力进行了研究，并与成熟森林进行了比较。此外，我们测试了功能性状——相对树皮厚度、比叶面积和树的大小——是否可以预测火灾后的再生策略。结果燃烧历史有限的热带干旱林样地对火的结构抗性较弱，但在树木群落中观察到显著的基部再生。从长期来看，时间序列在结构、成分或多样性指标上没有向成熟森林条件恢复的趋势。火灾对森林再生的重要生物遗产产生了负面影响，包括降低林冠密度，增强非生物压力源，创造有利于外来草入侵和反复发生火灾的条件。相对树皮厚度、比叶面积和茎数等功能性状是再生策略的关键预测因子，突出了加勒比热带干旱林物种再生响应的多样性。波多黎各热带干林对火灾没有弹性，因为它破坏了对再生至关重要的生物遗产，并促进了向难以恢复的退化状态的过渡。虽然再生仍然是火灾后的遗产，但火灾以挑战长期恢复的方式改变了生态系统动态。提出了一个概念模型来说明火灾如何破坏加勒比热带干燥森林的再生过程。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Journal of Vegetation Science 环境科学-林学

CiteScore

6.00

自引率

3.60%

发文量

审稿时长

2 months

期刊介绍： The Journal of Vegetation Science publishes papers on all aspects of plant community ecology, with particular emphasis on papers that develop new concepts or methods, test theory, identify general patterns, or that are otherwise likely to interest a broad international readership. Papers may focus on any aspect of vegetation science, e.g. community structure (including community assembly and plant functional types), biodiversity (including species richness and composition), spatial patterns (including plant geography and landscape ecology), temporal changes (including demography, community dynamics and palaeoecology) and processes (including ecophysiology), provided the focus is on increasing our understanding of plant communities. The Journal publishes papers on the ecology of a single species only if it plays a key role in structuring plant communities. Papers that apply ecological concepts, theories and methods to the vegetation management, conservation and restoration, and papers on vegetation survey should be directed to our associate journal, Applied Vegetation Science journal.