Abstract
The seasonally dry tropical forests of continental Southeast Asia occur in landscape-scale mosaics composed of several distinct forest types. The current understanding of the role of disturbances, such as fire and wind storms, in shaping these landscapes and the individual forest types within them, is limited by a lack of historical data. In this chapter we present the first dendroecological reconstruction of the historical dynamics of a mixed deciduous forest in western Thailand and compare it to an earlier study of the historical dynamics of an adjacent area of seasonal evergreen forest. The tree-ring data from the mixed deciduous forest demonstrate pulses of widespread gap recruitment since the 1850s for more than a dozen tree species. Recruitment and growth release data indicate complex patterns of disturbance both within and between forest types. However, there is strong evidence for extensive disturbances that synchronously impacted both the mixed deciduous and seasonal evergreen forests. Notably, several of the reconstructed landscape-scale disturbances are associated with intense regional drought events driven by ENSO variability in the Pacific Ocean. Interactions between the complex disturbance history of the landscape, which generate environmental conditions necessary for recruitment, and the wide range of reproductive phenologies, which generate the propagules for recruitment, provide a mechanism for coexistence for the many tree species that co-occur in these seasonal tropical forests.
... all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, … He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him.
Charles Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Altman J, Fibich P, Dolezal J, Aakala T (2014) TRADER: A package for Tree Ring Analysis of Disturbance Events in R. Dendrochronologia 32(2):107–112
Amoroso MM, Daniels LD, Bataineh M, Andison DW (2011) Evidence of mixed-severity fires in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains of west-central Alberta, Canada. For Ecol Manag 262(12):2240–2249
Anderson-Teixeira KJ, Davies SJ, Bennett AC, Gonzalez-Akre EB, Muller-Landau HC, Joseph Wright S, Abu Salim K, Almeyda Zambrano AM, Alonso A, Baltzer JL, Basset Y, Bourg NA, Broadbent EN, Brockelman WY, Bunyavejchewin S, Burslem DFRP, Butt N, Cao M, Cardenas D, Chuyong GB, Clay K, Cordell S, Dattaraja HS, Deng X, Detto M, Du X, Duque A, Erikson DL, Ewango CEN, Fischer GA, Fletcher C, Foster RB, Giardina CP, Gilbert GS, Gunatilleke N, Gunatilleke S, Hao Z, Hargrove WW, Hart TB, Hau BCH, He F, Hoffman FM, Howe RW, Hubbell SP, Inman Narahari FM, Jansen PA, Jiang M, Johnson DJ, Kanzaki M, Kassim AR, Kenfack D, Kibet S, Kinnaird MF, Korte L, Král K, Kumar J, Larson AJ, Li Y, Li X, Liu S, Lum SKY, Lutz JA, Ma K, Maddalena DM, Makana JR, Malhi Y, Marthews T, Mat Serudin R, McMahon SM, McShea WJ, Memiaghe HR, Mi X, Mizuno T, Morecroft M, Myers JA, Novotny V, Oliveira AA, Ong PS, Orwig DA, Ostertag R, Ouden J, Parker GG, Phillips RP, Sack L, Sainge MN, Sang W, Sri-Ngernyuang K, Sukumar R, Sun IF, Sungpalee W, Suresh HS, Tan S, Thomas SC, Thomas DW, Thompson J, Turner BL, Uriarte M, Valencia R, Vallejo MI, Vicentini A, Vrška T, Wang X, Wang X, Weiblen G, Wolf A, Xu H, Yap S, Zimmerman J (2015) CTFS-ForestGEO: a worldwide network monitoring forests in an era of global change. Glob Change Biol 21(2):528–549
Baker PJ (1997) Seedling establishment and growth across forest types in an evergreen/deciduous forest mosaic in western Thailand. Nat Hist Bull Siam Soc 45:17–41
Baker PJ, Bunyavejchewin S (2006) Suppression, release and canopy recruitment in five tree species from a seasonal tropical forest in western Thailand. J Trop Ecol 22(5):521
Baker PJ, Bunyavejchewin S (2009) Fire behavior and fire effects across the forest landscape of continental Southeast Asia. In: Cochrane MA (ed) Tropical fire ecology. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, pp 311–334
Baker PJ, Bunyavejchewin S, Oliver C, Ashton PS (2005) Disturbance history and historical stand dynamics of a seasonal tropical forest in western Thailand. Ecol Monogr 75(3):317–343
Baker PJ, Bunyavejchewin S, Robinson AP (2008) The impacts of large-scale, low-intensity fires on the forests of continental south-east Asia. Int J Wild Fire 17(6):782–792
Bishop P, Penny D, Stark M, Scott M (2003) A 3.5 ka record of paleoenvironments and human occupation at Angkor Borei, Mekong Delta, southern Cambodia. Geoarchaeology 18(3):359–393
Brandis D (1856) Report on the teak forests of Pegu. Tech. Rep. 28, CB Lewis, Baptis Mission Press, Calcutta
Brokaw N (1987) Gap-phase regeneration of three pioneer tree species in a tropical forest. J Ecol 75:9–19
Buckley B, Anchukaitis K, Penny D (2010) Climate as a contributing factor in the demise of Angkor, Cambodia. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107(15):6748–6752
Bunyavejchewin S (1983) Canopy structure of the dry dipterocarp forest of Thailand. Thai For Bull 14:1–132
Bunyavejchewin S, Baker PJ, LaFrankie JV, Ashton PS (2001) Stand structure of a seasonal evergreen forest at the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, western Thailand. Nat Hist Bull Siam Soc 49:89–106
Bunyavejchewin S, Baker PJ, LaFrankie JV, Ashton PS (2002) Floristic composition of a seasonal evergreen forest, Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, western Thailand. Nat Hist Bull Siam Soc 50:125–134
Bunyavejchewin S, Baker PJ, Davies SJ (2011) Seasonally dry tropical forests in continental Southeast Asia: structure, function and dynamics. In: McShea WJ, Davies SJ (eds) Ecology and conservation of seasonally dry forests in Asia. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, MD, pp 9–35
Bush MB, Colinvaux PA (1994) Tropical forest disturbance: paleoecological records from Darien, Panama. Ecology 75(6):1761–1768
Bush MB, McMichael CNH (2016) Holocene variability of an Amazonian hyperdominant. J Ecol 104:1370–1378
Carson WP, Schnitzer SA (eds) (2008) Tropical forest community ecology. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Chambers JQ, Asner GP, Morton D, Anderson L, Saatchi S, Espírito-Santo F, Palace M, Souza C (2007) Regional ecosystem structure and function: ecological insights from remote sensing of tropical forests. Trends Ecol Evol 22(8):414–423
Chambers JQ, Negrón-Juárez RI, Hurtt GC, Marra DM, Higuchi N (2009) Lack of intermediate-scale disturbance data prevents robust extrapolation of plot-level tree mortality rates for old-growth tropical forests. Ecol Lett 12(12):E22–E25
Comita LS (2014) Drought as a driver of tropical tree species regeneration dynamics and distribution patterns. In: Coomes DA, Burslem DFRP, Simonson WD (eds) Forests and global change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 261–308
Comita LS, Muller-Landau HC, Aguilar S, Hubbell SP (2010) Asymmetric density dependence shapes species abundances in a tropical tree community. Science 329:330–332
Cook E, Anchukaitis K, Buckley B, D’Arrigo R (2010) Asian monsoon failure and megadrought during the last millennium. Science 328:486–489
Denslow JS (1987) Tropical rainforest gaps and tree species diversity. Annu Rev Ecol Evol Syst 18:431–451
Engelbrecht BMJ, Comita LS, Condit RS, Kursar TA, Tyree MT, Turner BL, Hubbell SP (2007) Drought sensitivity shapes species distribution patterns in tropical forests. Nature 447(7140):80–82
Gamble JS (1902) A manual of Indian timbers: an account of the growth, distribution, and uses of the trees and shrubs of India and Ceylon with descriptions of their wood structure. Sampson, Low, Marston, & Co., London
Hille Ris Lambers J, Clark JS, Beckage B (2002) Density-dependent mortality and the latitudinal gradient in species diversity. Nature 417(6890):732–735
Hubbell SP (2008) Approaching Ecol. Complexity from the perspective of symmetric neutral theory. In: Carson WP, Schnitzer SA (eds) Tropical forest community ecology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 143–159
Jackson ST, Blois JL (2015) Community ecology in a changing environment: perspectives from the quaternary. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112(16):4915–4921
Jackson ST, Betancourt JL, Booth RK, Gray ST (2009) Ecology and the ratchet of events: Climate variability, niche dimensions, and species distributions. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106:19,685–19,692
Li J, Xie SP, Cook ER, Morales MS, Christie DA, Johnson NC, Chen F, D’arrigo R, Fowler AM, Gou X, Fang K (2013) El Niño modulations over the past seven centuries. Nat Clim Change 3(9):822–826
Maxwell AL (2004) Fire regimes in north-eastern Cambodian monsoonal forests, with a 9300-year sediment charcoal record. J Biogeogr 31:225–239
Middendorp RS, Vlam M, Rebel KT, Baker PJ, Bunyavejchewin S, Zuidema PA (2013) Disturbance history of a seasonal tropical forest in western Thailand: a spatial dendroecological analysis. Biotropica 45(5):578–586
Nguyen TT, Baker PJ (2016) Structure and composition of deciduous dipterocarp forest in Central Vietnam: patterns of species dominance and regeneration failure. Plant Ecol Div 9:589–601
Nobuchi T, Ogata Y, Siripatanadilok S (1995) Seasonal characteristics of wood formation in Hopea odorata and Shorea henryana. IAWA J 16:361–369
Nowacki G, Abrams M (1997) Radial-growth averaging criteria for reconstructing disturbance histories from presettlement-origin oaks. Ecol Monogr 67(2):225–249
Oliver CD, Larson BC (1996) Forest stand dynamics. Wiley, New York
Pederson N, Dyer JM, Mcewan RW, Hessl AE, Mock CJ, Orwig DA, Rieder HE, Cook BI (2014) The legacy of episodic climatic events in shaping temperate, broadleaf forests. Ecol Monogr 84(4):599–620
Potts MD (2003) Drought in a Bornean everwet rain forest. J Ecol 91(3):467–474
Simcharoen S, Pattanavibool A, Karanth KU, Nichols JD, Kumar NS (2007) How many tigers (Panthera tigris) are there in Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, Thailand? An estimate using photographic capture-recapture sampling. Oryx 41(4):1–7
Simcharoen S, Barlow ACD, Simcharoen A, Smith JLD (2008) Home range size and daytime habitat selection of leopards in Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, Thailand. Biol Conserv 141(9):2242–2250
Slik JWF (2004) El Nino droughts and their effects on tree species composition and diversity in tropical rain forests. Oecologia 141(1):7
Stahle DW (1999) Useful strategies for the development of tropical tree-ring chronologies. IAWA J 20:249–253
Swetnam T (1993) Fire history and climate change in giant sequoia groves. Science 262(5135):885
Swetnam TW, Betancourt JL (1998) Mesoscale disturbance and ecological response to decadal climatic variability in the American Southwest. J Climate 11:3128–3147
Trotsiuk V, Svoboda M, Janda P, Mikolas M, Bače R, Rejzek J, Samonil P, Chaskovskyy O, Korol M, Myklush S (2014) A mixed severity disturbance regime in the primary Picea abies (L.) Karst. forests of the Ukrainian Carpathians. For Ecol Manage 334:144–153
Troup RS (1921) The silviculture of indian trees, Leguminosae (Caesalpinieae) to Verbenaceae, vol II. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Vandermeer J, de la Cerda IG, Boucher D, Perfecto I (2000) Hurricane disturbance and tropical tree species diversity. Science 290:788–791
Vlam M, Baker PJ, Bunyavejchewin S, Mohren GMJ, Zuidema PA (2014) Understanding recruitment failure in tropical tree species: insights from a tree-ring study. For Ecol Manage 312:108–116
Warner RR, Chesson PL (1985) Coexistence mediated by recruitment fluctuations: A field guide to the storage effect. Am Nat 125:769–787
Whitmore T, Burslem DFRP (1998) Major disturbances in tropical forests. In: Newbery DM, Brown ND, Prins HHT (eds) Population and community dynamics in tropical forests. Blackwell Scientific Press, pp 549–565
Williams LJ, Bunyavejchewin S, Baker PJ (2008) Deciduousness in a seasonal tropical forest in western Thailand: interannual and intraspecific variation in timing, duration and environmental cues. Oecologia 155(3):571–582
Worbes M (2002) One hundred years of tree-ring research in the tropics - a brief history and an outlook to future challenges. Dendrochronologia 20:217–231
Yap SL, Davies SJ, Condit R (2015) Dynamic response of a Philippine dipterocarp forest to typhoon disturbance. J Veg Sci 27(1):133–143
Zimmer H, Baker PJ (2009) Climate and historical stand dynamics in the tropical pine forests of northern Thailand. For Ecol Manage 257(1):190–198
Zuidema PA, Baker PJ, Groenendijk P, Schippers P, van der Sleen P, Vlam M, Sterck F (2013) Tropical forests and global change: filling knowledge gaps. Trends Plant Sci 18(8):413–419
Acknowledgements
The dendroecological research on the mixed deciduous forest study plot at Huai Kha Khaeng was funded by a grant from the Center of Tropical Forest Science, Smithsonian Institution to PJB. We would like to thank the staff of the Kapook Kapiang Ranger Station, the Khlong Phuu Research Station, the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, and the National Research Council of Thailand for supporting our research at HKK over the past 25 years. PJB was supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT120100715) during the writing of this chapter.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Baker, P.J., Bunyavejchewin, S. (2017). Complex Historical Disturbance Regimes Shape Forest Dynamics Across a Seasonal Tropical Landscape in Western Thailand. In: Amoroso, M., Daniels, L., Baker, P., Camarero, J. (eds) Dendroecology. Ecological Studies, vol 231. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61669-8_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61669-8_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-61668-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-61669-8
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)