Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 21, 2026
08:31
The Calibration and Use of Capacitance Sensors to Monitor Stem Water Content in Trees
Published on: December 27, 2017
Community compensatory trend prevails from tropical to temperate forest
Lin Xiao1, Shixiao Yu, Mingguang Li
1State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol/School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Plos One
|June 16, 2012
Summary
Community compensatory trend (CCT) and negative density dependence (NDD) help rare species persist and stabilize forests. These ecological processes were observed across diverse forest communities, confirming their broad geographical importance in maintaining tree diversity.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Forest Ecology
- Biodiversity Science
Background:
- Community compensatory trend (CCT) is theorized to aid rare species persistence and stabilize tropical forest composition.
- The geographical range of CCT's effectiveness remains an open question in ecological research.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the presence and extent of negative density dependence (NDD) and CCT across a latitudinal gradient.
- To determine if NDD and CCT influence species composition and rare species survival in forest communities.
Main Methods:
- Utilized inventory data from three forest communities along a tropical-temperate gradient in China.
- Applied two established methods to test for community-level NDD, examining abundance ratios and adult-to-young tree relationships.
- Assessed CCT by comparing the impact of rare versus common species' adult abundance on established younger trees.
Main Results:
- Negative density dependence (NDD) was confirmed across seedling, sapling, and pole stages in all three communities, intensifying with increasing latitude.
- The impact of NDD varied across different tree strata (understory, midstory, canopy).
- Community compensatory trend (CCT) was supported, as rare species exhibited NDD less frequently than common species, indicating a relative advantage for rare species.
Conclusions:
- NDD and CCT are prevalent in the studied tree communities across all recruitment stages.
- CCT provides a survival advantage for rare species, facilitating their persistence and contributing to overall tree diversity.
- These findings confirm the broad applicability of CCT in maintaining forest biodiversity across latitudinal gradients.
Related Concept Videos
01:50Global Climate Change
Throughout its ~4.5 billion year history, the Earth has experienced periods of warming and cooling. However, the current drastic increase in global temperatures is well outside of the Earth’s cyclic norms, and evidence for human-caused global climate change is compelling. Paleoclimatology, the study of ancient climate conditions, provides ample evidence for human-caused global climate change by comparing recent conditions with those in the past.
02:31Habitat Fragmentation
Habitat fragmentation describes the division of a more extensive, continuous habitat into smaller, discontinuous areas. Human activities such as land conversion, as well as slower geological processes leading to changes in the physical environment, are the two leading causes of habitat fragmentation. The fragmentation process typically follows the same steps: perforation, dissection, fragmentation, shrinkage, and attrition.
02:26Ecological Disturbance
An ecological disturbance is a temporary disruption in the environment resulting from abiotic, biotic, or anthropogenic factors, causing a pronounced change in an ecosystem. The impact of an ecological disturbance, which can depend on its intensity, frequency, and spatial distribution, plays a significant role in shaping the species diversity within the ecosystem.
02:07Conservation of Declining Populations
Conservation of declining population focuses on ways of detecting, diagnosing, and halting a population decline. The approach uses methods to prevent populations from going extinct.
02:17Ecological Succession
Ecological succession is influenced by the processes of facilitation, inhibition, and toleration. Facilitation occurs when early successional species create more favorable ecological conditions for subsequent species, such as enhanced nutrient, water, or light availability. In contrast, inhibition happens when early successional species create unfavorable ecological conditions for potential successive species, such as limiting resource availability. In some cases, later successional species...
01:50Threats to Biodiversity
There have been five major extinction events throughout geological history, resulting in the elimination of biodiversity, followed by a rebound of species that adapted to the new conditions. In the current geological epoch, the Holocene, there is a sixth extinction event in progress. This mass extinction has been attributed to human activities and is thus provisionally called the Anthropocene. In 2019 the human population reached 7.7 billion people and is projected to comprise 10 billion by...