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Announcing the Smithson Tropical Research Institute (STRI) Tuesday afternoon seminar for July 10, 2012 at 4:00 pm in the Earl S. Tupper auditorium in Ancon:
Speaker: Richard Condit, STRI
Title: Species-specific responses to soil nutrients and rainfall across a community of tropical trees
Abstract: The distribution of tropical forest vegetation is limited by climate and by soil, but understanding individual species’ responses has been hindered by high diversity. We circumvented difficulties posed by large numbers of rare species with a hierarchical Bayesian model of species occurrence related to precipitation and individual soil nutrients in central Panama.
The results are a quantitative assessment of the community-wide impact of each resource measured as the range of responses of 551 tree species. Dry-season intensity and soil phosphorus were the strongest predictors, both impacting distributions of more than half the species, including a variety of positive and negative responses to one or both. This is the first report to isolate the simultaneous impact of soil and climate on individual tropical tree species and the beginning of developing models of forest response built with species differences.
Upcoming seminars:
July 17: Egbert Leigh, STRI
Title to be announced
July 24: Rob Raguso, Cornell University
Title to be announced
July 31, Chris Jiggins
Title to be announced
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