Digital Commons Network^™

Interspecific Demographic Trade-Offs And Soil-Related Habitat Associations Of Tree Species Along Resource Gradients, Sabrina E. Russo, Patrick Brown, Sylvester Tan, Stuart J. Davies

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Summary

1. Interspecific relationships between fundamental demographic rates, often called demographic trade-offs, emerge from constraints within individuals related to morphology, physiology and resource allocation. Plant species that grow fast in high light usually have high mortality in shade, and this well-established relationship in part defines a species’ successional niche. More generally, this relationship represents a trade-off between a species’ ability to grow quickly to exploit abundant resources vs. avoiding mortality when resources are less plentiful, but few studies have described this demographic trade-off with respect to environmental factors other than light.

2. Using demographic data from 960 tree species in …