Tree and neighborhood damage have distinct effects on delayed mortality after a severe hurricane

Tropical forest resilience, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration depend on tree survival. Disturbance events, such as hurricanes, generate distinct forms of damage at the individual-tree and neighborhood scale, providing a unique setting to disentangle the causal contributions of mortality drivers. Leveraging post-hurricane census data for nearly 4000 trees in the Luquillo Forest Dynamics Plot, Puerto Rico, we used a causal inference framework combined with Bayesian multilevel models to estimate the effect of individual- and neighborhood-scale damage on delayed tree mortality following Hurricane Maria (2017). Individual damage effects depended on species identity and tree size. Stem break emerged as the most lethal form of damage across the community. Neighborhood damage was associated with elevated mortality following Hurricane Maria, independent of focal tree damage. This effect was strongest among large trees, consistent with disproportionately high physiological stress resulting from greater inherent metabolic demands, refoliation energy costs, and evapotranspiration following canopy recovery. Severe biomass loss (> 75% crown loss) buffered large trees from negative neighborhood effects, revealing a positive pruning effect on survival. Our study advances mechanistic understanding of delayed tree mortality, while also suggesting how mortality patterns may shift with expected increases in disturbance severity under a warming climate.