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Dendroecology pp 75–96Cite as

Complex Historical Disturbance Regimes Shape Forest Dynamics Across a Seasonal Tropical Landscape in Western Thailand

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Part of the book series: Ecological Studies ((ECOLSTUD,volume 231))

Abstract

The seasonally dry tropical forests of continental Southeast Asia occur in landscape-scale mosaics composed of several distinct forest types. The current understanding of the role of disturbances, such as fire and wind storms, in shaping these landscapes and the individual forest types within them, is limited by a lack of historical data. In this chapter we present the first dendroecological reconstruction of the historical dynamics of a mixed deciduous forest in western Thailand and compare it to an earlier study of the historical dynamics of an adjacent area of seasonal evergreen forest. The tree-ring data from the mixed deciduous forest demonstrate pulses of widespread gap recruitment since the 1850s for more than a dozen tree species. Recruitment and growth release data indicate complex patterns of disturbance both within and between forest types. However, there is strong evidence for extensive disturbances that synchronously impacted both the mixed deciduous and seasonal evergreen forests. Notably, several of the reconstructed landscape-scale disturbances are associated with intense regional drought events driven by ENSO variability in the Pacific Ocean. Interactions between the complex disturbance history of the landscape, which generate environmental conditions necessary for recruitment, and the wide range of reproductive phenologies, which generate the propagules for recruitment, provide a mechanism for coexistence for the many tree species that co-occur in these seasonal tropical forests.

... all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, … He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him.

Charles Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

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Acknowledgements

The dendroecological research on the mixed deciduous forest study plot at Huai Kha Khaeng was funded by a grant from the Center of Tropical Forest Science, Smithsonian Institution to PJB. We would like to thank the staff of the Kapook Kapiang Ranger Station, the Khlong Phuu Research Station, the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, and the National Research Council of Thailand for supporting our research at HKK over the past 25 years. PJB was supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT120100715) during the writing of this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, 3121, Australia

    Patrick J. Baker

  2. Thai Long-term Forest Ecological Research, CTFS-Forest GEO, Bangkhen, Bangkok, 10220, Thailand

    Sarayudh Bunyavejchewin

Authors
  1. Patrick J. Baker
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  2. Sarayudh Bunyavejchewin
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Correspondence to Patrick J. Baker .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos, Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural, Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, El Bolsón, Río Negro, Argentina

    Mariano M. Amoroso

  2. Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Lori D. Daniels

  3. School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Patrick J. Baker

  4. Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (IPE-CSIC), Zaragoza, Spain

    J. Julio Camarero

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Baker, P.J., Bunyavejchewin, S. (2017). Complex Historical Disturbance Regimes Shape Forest Dynamics Across a Seasonal Tropical Landscape in Western Thailand. In: Amoroso, M., Daniels, L., Baker, P., Camarero, J. (eds) Dendroecology. Ecological Studies, vol 231. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61669-8_4

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