Abstract

Hurricanes commonly disturb and damage tropical forests. It is predicted that changes in climate will result in changes in hurricane frequency and intensity. Modeling is needed to investigate the potential response of forests to future disturbances. Unfortunately, existing models of forests dynamics are not presently able to account for hurricane disturbances. We implement the Hurricane Disturbance in the Ecosystem Demography model (ED2) (ED2-HuDi). The hurricane disturbance includes hurricane-induced immediate mortality and subsequent recovery modules. The parameterizations are based on observations at the Bisley Experimental Watersheds (BEW) in the Luquillo Experimental Forest in Puerto Rico. We add one new plant functional type (PFT) to the model—Palm, as palms cannot be categorized into one of the current existing PFTs and are known to be an abundant component of tropical forests worldwide. The model is calibrated with observations at BEW using the generalized likelihood uncertainty estimates (GLUE) approach. The optimal simulation obtained from GLUE has a mean relative error of −21 %, −12 %, and −15 % for stem density, basal area, and aboveground biomass, respectively. The optimal simulation also agrees well with the observation in terms of PFT composition (+1%, −8 %, −2 %, and +9 % differences in the percentages of Early, Mid, Late, and Palm PFTs, respectively) and size structure of the forest (+0.8 % differences in the percentage of large stems). Lastly, using the optimal parameter set, we study the impact of forest initial condition on the recovery of the forest from a single hurricane disturbance. The results indicate that, compared to a no-hurricane scenario, a single hurricane disturbance has little impact on forest structure (+1 % change in the percentage of large stems) and composition (< 1 % change in the percentage of each of the four PFTs) but leads to 5 % higher aboveground biomass after 80 years of succession. The assumption of a less severe hurricane disturbance leads to a 4 % increase in aboveground biomass.

Highlights

  • Hurricane-induced mortality varies with many factors, including hurricane severity (Parker et al 2018), environmental conditions (Uriarte et al 2019; Hall et al 2020), forest structure (Zhang et al in revision), and traits and size of individual trees (Curran et al 2008; Lewis and Bannar-Martin 2011)

  • The results indicate that a single hurricane disturbance has little impact on forest structure and composition but enhances the aboveground biomass accumulation of a tropical rainforest

  • We find that K=8 has the best performance on the posterior estimates of output variables stem density, aboveground biomass, basal area, proportion of each plant functional type (PFT), and proportion of large stems (Figure 4, Figure S3, and Figure S4)

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Summary

Introduction

Hurricane-induced mortality varies with many factors, including hurricane severity (Parker et al 2018), environmental conditions (Uriarte et al 2019; Hall et al 2020), forest structure (Zhang et al in revision), and traits and size of individual trees (Curran et al 2008; Lewis and Bannar-Martin 2011). Species with higher wood density tend to suffer less from hurricane disturbances (Zimmerman et al 1994; Curran et al 2008). Forests with a more wind-resistant structure and composition experience lower mortality even during a stronger hurricane event (Zhang et al in revision). The recovery from hurricanes depends on many factors, such as the disturbance severity (Walker 1991; Everham and Brokaw 1996; Cole et al 2014; Heartsill Scalley 2017) and traits of individual species (Curran et al.2008; Lewis and Bannar-Martin 2011). Species with lower wood density have a faster resprouting (Paz et al 2018)

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