DATA SET IDENTIFIER: BCI flower and seed rain 50 ha plot. PROJECT TITLE: Flower and seed rain

Transcription

1 DATA SET IDENTIFIER: BCI flower and seed rain 50 ha plot PROJECT TITLE: Flower and seed rain PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Seasonal rhythms of flowering and fruiting are an important component of plant community dynamics and can be a critical determinant of the dynamics of consumer populations. RESEARCH LOCATION: The 50-ha Forest Dynamics Plot on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. The southwest corner of the FDP is located at easting and northing in UTM Zone 17. DATA SET CREATOR: S. Joseph Wright DATA SET CONTACT: S. Joseph Wright ( wrightj@si.edu) DATA SET ABSTRACT: These data are being used to (1) determine the seasonality of flowering and fruiting and test hypotheses concerning the timing of reproduction, (2) evaluate relationships between annual levels of flower and seed production versus annual variation in rainfall and other climatic variables, (3) determine seed dispersal distances through analyses of the location of seed arrival and the mapped locations of potential seed-bearing trees in the Forest Dynamics Plot, (4) evaluate hypothesized mechanisms of plant species coexistence including the tolerance-fecundity, competition-colonization and storage hypotheses, (5) evaluate effects of the identity and size of neighboring plants on seedling recruitment, growth and mortality, and (6) provide information on food supplies available to nectarivores, frugivores and granivores. DATA SET METHODS: We identify all plant reproductive structures captured in 250 traps to species. Briefly, the census began in January 1987, is conducted once each week, and is planned to continue indefinitely. Seeds and fruits are counted and flower numbers are recorded on an approximate logarithmic scale. Each trap has a surface area of 0.5 m 2 and consists of a loose bag of 1-mm mesh suspended cm above the ground from a PVC frame. The mesh is standard plastic-coated fiber glass window screen. The traps are located in the 50-ha Forest Dynamics Plot (FDP) on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. The first 200 traps are located at 13.5 m intervals on alternating sides and from 4-10 m from 2.7 km of pre-existing trails within the FDP. Traps numbered 300 to 349 were added in naturally occurring tree fall gaps within the FDP between 2002 and All woody plants including lianas larger than 1 cm in diameter at breast height (DBH) are identified to species, mapped to the nearest 0.5 m, and measured for DBH at five year intervals within the FDP. This study and FDP are described in greater detail at and respectively. DATA FILE NAME: BCISeedRain.txt (Tables 1 and 2 describe the variables). DATA FILE TYPE: Tab delimited ASCII NUMBER OF RECORDS: 601,372

2 DATA SET MOST RECENTLY UPDATED ON METADATA MOST RECENTLY UPDATED ON Table 1. Description of variables in the BCI flower and see rain Data Set. Name (as it appears in the data file) Description Units Preci sion Range Data Type Missing data codes sp Four-letter code to represent species NA NA See species list* Character NA fecha Date in YYYYMMDD format NA NA Integer NA census Integer to identify each census NA NA Integer NA trap Integer to identify each trap NA NA and Integer NA part Integer to identify reproductive structures NA NA 0-10 and 18; (see Table 2) Integer NA quantity Count NA NA Number NA * The species list can be downloaded at

3 Table 2. Key to the variable part in the BCI flower and seed rain Data Set Value Description of reproductive organ or part 0 Reproductive buds (only recorded for selected species) (first recorded on ) 1 Mature fruit 2 Single diaspores Capsules (This is a part that vertebrates never eat. Botanically this might be a capsule, pedicel, bract, etc.) Fragments of fruit dropped by vertebrates (we record the number of fruit represented by counting pedicels or the points of attachment of fruits to the mother plant) Immature fruit (endosperm of seeds is not filled; falls later during development than #8 below) 6 Perfect and female flowers 7 Fruit with insect emergence hole (only recorded for selected species) 8 Aborted fruits (fall soon after flowering, have a swollen ovule, and often have some flower parts attached) (first recorded on ; previously lumped with #5 above) 9 Male flowers (first recorded on ; previously lumped with #6 above) 10 (first recorded on ) 18 Fecal material of howler monkeys present in the trap (first recorded on )

4 ADDITIONAL NOTES: The variable sp equals NADA when a trap lacked any reproductive parts. This occurred on approximately 18.8% of the trap visits. The variable quantity was recorded as presence only (i.e., all values equal 1) for flowers (part=6 or part=9) and buds (part=0) until Starting on , the variable quantity was recorded on an approximate logarithmic scale (i.e., 1, 10, 100 or 1000) for flowers and buds. The variable quantity is the count of the number of items in the trap when the variable part equals 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 or 10. The count is an approximation when the number of items was very large (> ~200). In this situation, the items were returned to the laboratory, spread evenly over a surface, and a randomly chosen proportion was counted. The proportion counted was 0.5 up to ~500 items, 0.25 up to ~2000 items and 0.10 for larger numbers of items. We missed two weekly censuses in 25 years. The census scheduled for the week of was missed because BCI was evacuated for one week during the invasion of Panama by the United States. The census scheduled for the week of was missed because Osvaldo Calderon was sick and S. Joseph Wright was traveling. In both instances, flowers and seeds remained in the traps and were encountered in the next census. The number of the next census was 156 and 63, respectively. Some fragile flowers were probably lost to decay over these two two-week intervals. The variable census was included as a check on the variable fecha. This is important in Panama because the order in which month and day of month are recorded differs with the nationality of the investigator. This problem persists even when data forms specify a space for month and another space for day of month.

5 Publications based on the BCI flower and seed rain data set Wright, SJ, A Trakhtenbrot, G Bohrer, M Detto, GG Katul, N Horvitz, HC Muller-Landau, FA Jones, R Nathan Understanding strategies for seed dispersal by wind under contrasting atmospheric conditions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (USA) 105: Metz, MR, LS Comita, YY Chen, N Norden, R Condit, SP Hubbell, IF Sun, N Supardi Bin Md. Noor, SJ Wright Temporal and spatial variability in seedling dynamics: a crosssite comparison in four lowland tropical forests. Journal of Tropical Ecology 24: Muller-Landau, HC, SJ Wright, O Calderon, R Condit and SP Hubbell Interspecific variation in primary seed dispersal in a tropical forest. Journal of Ecology 96: Zimmerman, JK, SJ Wright, O Calderón, M Aponte Pagan, S Paton Flowering and fruiting phenologies of seasonal and aseasonal neotropical forests: the role of irradiance. Journal of Tropical Ecology 23: Gilbert, B, SJ Wright, K Kitajima, HC Muller-Landau and A Hernandéz Life history trade-offs in tropical trees and lianas. Ecology 87: King, DA, SJ Wright and JH Connell The distribution of maximum tree heights in tropical vs. temperate forests: cause or consequence of tropical diversity? Journal of Tropical Ecology 22: Reported in Science (volume 311, page X) as an Editors' Choice: Highlights of the recent literature. Wright, SJ and O Calderón Seasonal, El Niño and longer term changes in flower and seed production in a moist tropical forest. Ecology Letters 9: Svenning, J.-C. and SJ Wright Seed limitation in a Panamanian forest. Journal of Ecology 93: Milton, K., J. Giacalone and SJ Wright Do population fluctuations of neotropical frugivores reflect fruit production estimates? Evidence from Barro Colorado Island. Pages 5-35 in J. L. Dew and J. P. Boubli, editors. In: Tropical Fruits and Frugivores: The Search for Strong Interactions. Kluwer Publishing, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. Wright, SJ, H. C. Muller-Landau, O. Calderón and A. Hernandéz Annual and spatial variation in seedfall and seedling recruitment in a Neotropical forest. Ecology 86: Muller-Landau, H. C., J. W. Dalling, K. E. Harms, SJ Wright, R. Condit, S. P. Hubbell and R. B. Foster Seed dispersal and density-dependent seed and seeding mortality in Trichilia tuberculata and Miconia argentea. Pages in E.C. Losos and E. G. Leigh, Jr., editors. Tropical forest diversity and dynamism: Findings from a large-scale plot network. 645 pp. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

6 Wright, SJ, O. Calderón, A. Hernandéz and S. Paton Are lianas increasing in importance in tropical forests? A 17-year record from Panamá. Ecology 85: Wright, SJ, H. C. Muller-Landau, R. Condit and S. P. Hubbell Gap-dependent recruitment, realized vital rates, and size distributions of tropical trees. Ecology 84: DeSteven, D. and SJ Wright Consequences of variable reproduction for seedling recruitment in three neotropical tree species. Ecology 83: Dalling, J. W., H. C. Muller-Landau, SJ Wright and S. P. Hubbell Role of dispersal in the recruitment limitation of neotropical pioneer species. Journal of Ecology 90: Wright, SJ Plant diversity in tropical forests: a review of mechanisms of species coexistence. Oecologia 130: Muller-Landau, H. C., SJ Wright, O. Calderón, S. P. Hubbell and R. B. Foster Assessing recruitment limitation: Concepts, methods, and case studies from a tropical forest. Pages in D. J. Levey, W. R. Silva and M. Galetti, editors. Seed dispersal and frugivory: ecology, evolution and conservation. CAB International, Oxfordshire, UK. Harms, K.E., S.J. Wright, O. Calderón, A. Hernandéz and E. A. Herre Pervasive densitydependent recruitment enhances seedling diversity in a tropical forest. Nature 404: Research focus in TREE: Howe, H. F. and M. Miriti No question: seed dispersal matters. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 15: Wright, SJ, C. Carrasco, O. Calderón and S. Paton The El Niño Southern Oscillation, variable fruit production and famine in a tropical forest. Ecology 80: Hubbell, S. P., R. B. Foster, S. T. O'Brien, K. E. Harms, R. Condit, B. Weschler, SJ Wright and S. Loo de Lao Light gap disturbances, recruitment limitation, and tree diversity in a neotropical forest. Science 283: Condit, R Ecological implications of changes in drought patterns: shifts in forest composition in Panama. Climatic Change 39: Wright, SJ Phenological responses to seasonality in tropical forest plants. Pages in S. S. Mulkey, R. L. Chazdon and A. P. Smith, eds. Tropical forest plant ecophysiology. Chapman and Hall, New York. Wright, SJ and O Calderón Phylogenetic constraints on tropical flowering phenologies. Journal of Ecology 83: Wright, SJ and CP van Schaik Light and the phenology of tropical trees. American Naturalist 143: