Abstract
ABSTRACT. The paper addresses the question: how does asymmetric competition for light affect the spatial pattern of trees? It is based on an individual‐based spatially explicit model of forest dynamics, whose growth equations are derived from gap models. The model is calibrated on a stand of natural rainforest in French Guiana, where the tree pattern exhibits regularity at short distances (< 10 m) and clustering at medium distances (∼ 30 m). The model reproduces the regularity but not the clustering. As mortality and recruitment have been modeled so as to favor a random pattern, we conclude that regularity emerges from the asymmetric competition in the growth submodel. Also the scale at which regularity appears is linked to the range of interactions between trees.
Highlights
IntroductionFRANC diameter or height distribution or classes; tree models follow the trajectory of every single tree
Models of forest stand dynamics can be classified according to the level of description they rely on: stand models are based on stand characteristics such as total basal area, density; distribution models rely on distributions of tree characteristics such as
The question of interest would be: how does the coupling between spatial pattern and growth processes modify wood volume prediction? In this paper, we address the counterpart question: how does this coupling affect spatial pattern? we are concerned with the incidence of competition on spatial pattern (Brisson and Reynolds [1997], Hanus et al [1998], Pielou [1962])
Summary
FRANC diameter or height distribution or classes; tree models follow the trajectory of every single tree Among the latter, a distinction is generally made between distance-dependent and distance-independent models (Bruce and Wensel [1988]). One question is to know whether distance-dependent interactions between trees can be degraded into distance-independent processes without loss of realism (Deutschman [1996], Levin et al [1997], Pacala and Deutschman [1995]). This matter goes well beyond the scope of forest models since it concerns the whole field of spatio-temporal dynamics (Bascompte and Sole [1995], Czaran and Bartha [1992])
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