DOI: 10.5061/dryad.4gv37
title: Data from: Conservative species drive biomass productivity in tropical dry forests

description: 1. Forests account for a substantial part of the terrestrial biomass
 storage and productivity. To better understand forest productivity we need
 to disentangle the processes underlying net biomass change. 2. We tested
 how above-ground net biomass change and its underlying biomass dynamics
 (biomass recruitment, growth, and mortality) can be explained by four
 alterative and contested hypotheses; the soil fertility, biomass ratio,
 niche complementarity and vegetation quantity hypotheses. 3. Above-ground
 biomass dynamics were evaluated over a five-year period in 200 permanent
 sample plots in 8 tropical dry forests in Brazil, and related to soil
 fertility, community-weighted mean (CWM) traits that are important for
 carbon storage and sequestration (wood density, specific leaf area,
 maximum stem diameter and deciduousness), species richness, functional
 diversity, and initial stand biomass. 4. Initial stand biomass was the
 best predictor of all three processes of biomass dynamics, providing
 strong support for the vegetation quantity hypothesis. In these dry
 forests the dominance of conservative species, rather than of acquisitive
 species, is associated with high biomass growth and storage, probably
 because their low specific leaf area and high wood density allows them to
 keep on functioning during drought stress. 5. Paradoxically, high soil
 fertility (Ca) led to low biomass productivity, probably because of
 nutrient imbalance. 6. In contrast to what is shown for controlled
 experiments, we found no support for niche complementarity (in terms of
 functional diversity or species richness) for forest productivity. Biomass
 storage was favoured by low- rather than high trait diversity, as most of
 the biomass is concentrated in species with large stem diameter and high
 wood density. 7. Synthesis: Biomass dynamics are mainly shaped by
 vegetation quantity, and then by vegetation quality, in line with the mass
 ratio hypothesis. Dry forests show different trait-productivity
 relationships than wet forests, as stands with “slow” trait values are
 “fast” in terms of productivity. Diversity matters, but in a different way
 than expected; high trait diversity does not enhance productivity, but
 instead, does low trait diversity enhance carbon storage.
description: Data from Prado-Junior
 et al. (2016) - Journal of EcologyData of above-ground
 biomass dynamics over a five-year period in eight seasonal tropical dry
 forests in Minas Gerais state, Southeastern Brazil. In each forest, 25
 permanent sample plots (20 × 20 m) were established totaling one ha per
 site. Biomass dynamics, structural, floristic, functional and soil
 variables used in the biomass models are given. AGBi = stand biomass,
 AGBnet = net biomass change, AGBsurv = biomass growth of surviving trees,
 AGBmort = biomass mortality, AGBrecr = biomass recruitment, NI =
 tree-density (ha-1), CWM = community weighed mean, WD = wood density, Dmax
 = maximum stem diameter, SLA = specific leaf area, Dec = deciduousness, S
 = rarefied species richness, H’ = Shannon-Wiener index, J’ = Pielou’s
 index, Fric = functional richness, Feve = functional evenness, Fdiv =
 functional divergence, P = phosphorous, K = potassium, Ca = calcium, Mg =
 magnesium, Al = aluminum, CEC = cation exchange
 capacity.Data from Prado-Junior et al.
 (2016).xlsx