Ecosystem

Shade tolerance

Understory

Pathology

Secondary succession

Biology

Trait

Canopy

Old-growth forest

Tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests

Secondary forest

Ecological succession

Ecology

Programming language

Forest restoration

Vegetation (pathology)

Chronosequence

Computer science

Deciduous

Agroforestry

Medicine

Forest ecology

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Significance Tropical forests disappear rapidly through deforestation but also have the potential to regrow naturally through a process called secondary succession. To advance successional theory, it is essential to understand how these secondary forests and their assembly vary across broad spatial scales. We do so by synthesizing continental-scale patterns in succession using a functional trait approach. We show that the start and pathway of succession varies with climatic water availability. In dry forests, succession is driven by drought tolerance traits and in wet forests by shade tolerance traits. Based on these successional principles, we propose an ecologically sound strategy to improve active forest restoration.

Functional recovery of secondary tropical forests