Journal article

Partitioning mortality into growth-dependent and growth-independent hazards across 203 tropical tree species

JS Camac, R Condit, RG FitzJohn, L McCalman, D Steinberg, M Westoby, S Joseph Wright, DS Falster

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | NATL ACAD SCIENCES | Published : 2018

Abstract

Tree death drives population dynamics, nutrient cycling, and evolution within plant communities. Mortality variation across species is thought to be influenced by different factors relative to variation within species. The unified model provided here separates mortality rates into growth-dependent and growth-independent hazards. This model creates the opportunity to simultaneously estimate these hazards both across and within species. Moreover, it provides the ability to examine how species traits affect growth-dependent and growth-independent hazards. We derive this unified mortality model using cross-validated Bayesian methods coupled with mortality data collected over three census interva..

View full abstract

University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by National Science Foundation


Funding Acknowledgements

We thank H. Muller-Landau, Peter Vesk, and anonymous reviewers for feedback and B. Carpenter for technical advice. We acknowledge S. Hubbell, R. Foster, R. Perez, S. Aguilar, S. Lao, S. Dolins, and hundreds of field workers for their contribution and the National Science Foundation, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and MacArthur Foundation for funding the design, collection, quality control, and management of long-term growth data at BCI. J.S.C., R.G.F., L.M., and D.S. were supported by the Science and Industry Endowment Fund (RP04-174). D.S.F. and M.W. were supported by fellowships from the Australian Research Council.