Tropical cyclones and forest dynamics under a changing climate: What are the long-term implications for tropical forest canopies in the cyclone belt?

Abstract

Natural and anthropogenic disturbances shape forest ecosystems by modifying their structure and species composition and functional processes, such as nutrient cycling (Dale et al. 2001). Tropical moist forests of the world are regularly affected by a plethora of natural disturbances, including infrequent but damaging wild fires, droughts, floods, occasional landslides, severe thunderstorms and tropical cyclones (Turton and Stork 2008). All these natural disturbances interact in complex ways with anthropogenic disturbances across the landscape, such as forest clearing and habitat fragmentation and degradation (Turton 2012). Outside equatorial forests, tropical cyclones are among the most significant disturbance agents regularly upsetting equilibrium of tropical moist forests in exposed coastal and near-coastal regions.