Environmental resource management

Tree (set theory)

Forest dynamics

Mathematics

Biology

Mathematical analysis

Ecological succession

Geography

Tropical climate

Ecology

Tropical forest

Environmental science

Tropics

Agroforestry

Basal area

Science

Understanding tropical forest dynamics and planning for their sustainable management require efficient, yet accurate, predictions of the joint dynamics of hundreds of tree species. With increasing information on tropical tree life histories, our predictive understanding is no longer limited by species data but by the ability of existing models to make use of it. Using a demographic forest model, we show that the basal area and compositional changes during forest succession in a neotropical forest can be accurately predicted by representing tropical tree diversity (hundreds of species) with only five functional groups spanning two essential trade-offs-the growth-survival and stature-recruitment trade-offs. This data-driven modeling framework substantially improves our ability to predict consequences of anthropogenic impacts on tropical forests.

Demographic trade-offs predict tropical forest dynamics