Understanding how trait-based coordination of shade- and drought-tolerance regulates seedling dynamics in fragmented wet tropical forests (DFG) Tropical forests stand threatened by climate change and fragmentation due to human land-use. It is therefore an urgent concern to disentangle the mechanisms by which fragmentation alters tropical forest dynamics in a drought-prone future climate. In this project, the overarching goal is to provide fundamental insights into how the coordination of responses to environmental drivers (drought, shade and nutrients) influence seedling dynamics in wet tropical forests subject to global change. Research is conducted in a human-modified forest complex in the central Western Ghats (India). We combine observational and experimental approaches to integrate detailed characterizations of microsite conditions and assessment of seedling performance and community composition in a network of seedling plots, with comparative assessments of relevant physiological, anatomical and morphological functional seedling traits. The study addresses fundamental knowledge gaps in trait-based ecology, advances our understanding of forest response to global change, and generates science-based inputs for restoration efforts geared towards supporting vulnerable species or selecting species that can mitigate the impacts of global change on biodiverse tropical forests.
[Details]
