Disturbance & Succession

Disturbance is a key force shaping forest ecosystems, influencing patterns of succession, carbon dynamics, and long-term resilience. Our research integrates advanced remote sensing, long-term plot data, and ecological theory to uncover how forests recover from and adapt to disturbances such as fire, drought, storms, logging, and earthquakes. By examining forests from the tropics to temperate zones, we aim to understand the processes that govern structural change and ecosystem function across scales, from individual trees to continental patterns.

Featured Publications

Tall Bornean forests experience higher canopy disturbance rates than those in the eastern Amazon or Guiana shield
Toby D. Jackson, Fabian J. Fischer, Grégoire Vincent, Eric B. Gorgens, Michael Keller, Jérôme Chave, Tommaso Jucker, David A. Coomes – Global Change Biology (2023)
DOI: 10.1111/gcb.17493
Airborne LiDAR reveals that tall Bornean forests experience small-scale disturbances that outweigh growth, unlike Amazonian and Guianan forests—indicating their vulnerability to climate-driven extreme events.

Repeat GEDI footprints measure the effects of tropical forest disturbances
Amelia Holcomb, Patrick Burns, Srinivasan Keshav, et al., David A. Coomes – Remote Sensing of Environment (2024)
DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2024.114174
Spaceborne GEDI lidar data capture biomass and canopy height losses from disturbances at fine scales, improving monitoring of carbon loss and forest recovery dynamics.

Disturbances prevent stem size-density distributions in natural forests from following scaling relationships
David A. Coomes, et al. –Ecology Letters (2003)
DOI: 10.1046/j.1461-0248.2003.00520.x
Challenges classical scaling theory by showing that disturbances disrupt expected stem size–density distributions, with competition shaping small stems and disturbances dominating larger ones.

Forest disturbance and growth processes are reflected in the geographical distribution of large canopy gaps across the Brazilian Amazon
Cristiano R. Reis, Toby D. Jackson, David A. Coomes, et al. -Journal of Ecology (2022)
DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.14003
Mapping canopy gaps across the Amazon reveals how disturbance and growth processes leave distinctive geographical patterns, offering insights into regional forest dynamics.

Reconstructing 34 Years of Fire History in the Wet, Subtropical Vegetation of Hong Kong Using Landsat
Aland H. Y. Chan, Alejandro Guizar-Coutino, Michelle Kalamandeen, David A. Coomes –Remote Sensing (2023)
DOI: 10.3390/rs15061489
Using Landsat imagery, this study reconstructs a long-term fire history in Hong Kong, producing a high-accuracy dataset that highlights the scale and frequency of fire disturbance in subtropical ecosystems.