Abstract
The extent to which environmental heterogeneity can account for tree species coexistence in diverse ecosystems, such as tropical rainforests, is hotly debated, although the importance of spatial variability in contributing to species co-existence is well recognized. Termites contribute to the micro-topographical and nutrient spatial heterogeneity of tropical forests. We therefore investigated whether epigeal termite mounds could contribute to the coexistence of plant species within a 50 ha plot at Pasoh Forest Reserve, Malaysia. Overall, stem density was significantly higher on mounds than in their immediate surroundings, but tree species diversity was significantly lower. Canonical correspondence analysis showed that location on or off mounds significantly influenced species distribution when stems were characterized by basal area. Like studies of termite mounds in other ecosystems, our results suggest that epigeal termite mounds provide a specific microhabitat for the enhanced growth and survival of certain species in these species-rich tropical forests. However, the extent to which epigeal termite mounds facilitate species coexistence warrants further investigation.
Highlights
Understanding the mechanisms of biodiversity maintenance remains a fundamental challenge in ecology and is of particular interest for understanding community assembly processes in species-rich tropical forests [1,2,3]
Surface area covered by the mound ranged from 0.65 m2 to 14.14 m2 when estimated as an ellipse and mound volume ranged from 0.62 m3 to 18.74 m3 when estimated as a half-ellipsoid
Our study investigated whether epigeal termite mounds affect tree abundance, diversity and community composition at a microhabitat scale in a lowland dipterocarp forest
Summary
Understanding the mechanisms of biodiversity maintenance remains a fundamental challenge in ecology and is of particular interest for understanding community assembly processes in species-rich tropical forests [1,2,3]. The spatial scale at which niche differences are examined can greatly affect our understanding of the role of niche differentiation in driving biodiversity patterns [8,9]. Much emphasis has been given to the role of edaphic factors in explaining large (.1 km) [8,10,11] and medium (20 m–1 km) [1,2,3,6,7,12,13] scale variation in floristic patterns in tropical communities. Few studies have investigated floristic patterns at these micro-habitat (,10 m) scales within tropical forests. To understand the role of local-scale processes on species coexistence, we investigated the influence of termite mounds on plant communities in a species-rich forest in Peninsular Malaysia
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