EEB Tuesday Seminar Series - Weathering the (wind)storm: how functional traits modulate forest responses to tropical cyclones, from individual trees to communities

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are a major source of abiotic stress in forest ecosystems across the globe. Strong winds from these storms cause widespread damage to trees, thus affecting their demography by increasing mortality risk and altering their growth dynamics and abundance changes in the aftermath. Functional trait ecology allows us to quantitatively measure the physiological mechanisms that underpin tree demographic variation and TC responses, but these demographic dynamics and trait-demography connections vary in magnitude, direction, and strength across impacted forest systems.

In light of this variation, my research will incorporate both functional trait and characteristics of present and past cyclone impacts to determine which predictors modulate demographic responses on a global scale; and will investigate individual, population, and community-level functional trait patterns and how these inform growth rate dynamism in a TC-prone forest in Puerto Rico. With the frequency of intense TCs and their geographic range of impacts both forecasted to increase with climate change, a mechanistic and comprehensive understanding of forest responses to these events is more important than ever before.