Malaysian dipterocarp forest: tree seedling and sapling species composition and small-scale disturbance patterns
The authors tallied all tree and shrub seedlings and saplings ≤5 cm dbh in 39 hexagonal, 20-m2 plots in coastal hill dipterocarp forest of Penang. Ten plots were located in a closed-canopy forest; the rest were located in 21 natural tree-fall gaps. Virtually all species found in forest plots were also found in gap plots; at least 13 species were found only in gaps, usually in association with obvious soil disturbance. Microhabitat differences within and among gaps may influence local patterns of species success, but the species composition of particular gaps is more similar to that of adjacent, undisturbed forest than to similar gap types in different locations, suggesting that seedlings present at the time of gap formation dominate the regenerating community, regardless of the particular type of tree fall that created the gap. -from Authors
