Demographic variation and demographic niches of trees species in the Barro Colorado Forest

One goal for the 50-ha plot on Barro Colorado Island since its inception has been to understand demographic variability across the entire community of tree species. Early papers classified demographic response of many species to canopy gaps, culminating over the last decade with improved statistical methods that could quantify the response of growth, survival, and recruitment rates to increasing light for the entire community. We compile results from recent studies to illustrate the demographic trade-off between fast growth in high light and long life in deep shade. Growth and recruitment in high light are significantly correlated with mortality across species, and this trade-off is the primary demographic differentiation in the community. Here we add a new analysis of expected adult lifespan of 31 dominant canopy species spanning the growth-mortality axis. Using analytical solutions to matrices describing the lifetable, we demonstrate that the trade-off between high growth and long lifespan is not equalizing. The expected adult lifespan of a newly-recruited sapling is shorter in fast-growing pioneers than in long-lived shade-tolerant species: elevated growth rates of pioneers is insufficient to overcome their high death rates. If reproductive output were equal across the demographic axis, pioneer species could not persist. This suggests pioneers out-reproduce shade-tolerant species. The next goal is incorporating seed and seedling production into the demographic analysis to test the trade-off using lifetables having reproductive output included.