Habitat associations of Sterculiaceae trees in a Bornean rain forest plot

Abstract

Abstract Questions: 1. Are trees in a Bornean tropical rain forest associated with a particular habitat? 2. Does the strength of habitat association with the species-specific optimal habitat increase with tree size? Location: A 52-ha plot in a mixed dipterocarp forest in a heterogeneous landscape at the Lambir Hills National Park, Sarawak, East Malaysia. Methods: Ten species from the Sterculiaceae were chosen as representative of all species in the plot, on the assumption that competition among closely related species is more stringent than that among more distantly related taxa. Their habitat associations were tested using data from a 52-ha plot by a torus-translation test. Results: The torus-translation test showed that eight out of the ten species examined had significant association with at least one habitat. We could not find negative species-habitat associations for rare species, probably due to their small sample sizes. Among four species small trees were less strongly associated with habitat than ...