Forest Ecology and Conservation Group

Changing the Landscape of Conservation

Publications 2000 – 2009

  • Impacts of forest fragmentation on species composition and forest structure in the temperate landscape of southern Chile

    An assessment of the diverse impacts of fragmentation on forest habitats by integrating landscape-level and species-level approaches. ECHEVERRIA, C.; NEWTON, A.C.; LARA, A.; REY-BENAYAS, J.M.; COOMES, D.A. 2007 PDF

  • Mortality and tree-size distributions in natural mixed-age forests

    Use of a classic conceptual framework – the shifting mosaic of patches model – to explore the ways in which competitive thinning and disturbance influence tree-size distributions, and to consider the effects of temporal variability in disturbance frequency on the size structure of forests. Coomes, D.A.; Allen, R.B. 2007 PDF

  • Effects of size, competition and altitude on tree growth

    An exploration of the factors regulating the diameter growth of 3334 trees of mountain beech growing in natural single-species forests in New Zealand. Maximum-likelihood modelling was used to quantify the influences of tree size, altitude, the basal area of taller neighbours (BL) and the basal area of all neighbours (BT) on growth. Coomes, D.A.; Allen,…

  • Resistance and resilience of New Zealand tree species to browsing

    A prominent idea in the literature on plant–herbivore interactions is that fast-growing species have low resistance but high resilience to herbivory. Fast-growing species are selectively eaten by herbivores but recover quickly following damage. This is an analysis whether this resistance-resilience trade-off applies to New Zealand woody species, which evolved without exposure to mammalian herbivores. BEE, J.N.;…

  • Growth–size scaling relationships of woody plant species differ from predictions of the Metabolic Ecology Model

    A report in which the Metabolic Ecology Model is shown not to accurately predict the allometric scaling of 56 woody plant species in New Zealand and that no evidence was found to support the assumptions of the model. Russo, S.E.; Wiser, S.K.; Coomes, D.A. 2007 PDF

  • Scaling of tree vascular transport systems along gradients of nutrient supply and altitude

    Investigating whether trees growing at high altitude or on nutrient-depleted soils prioritise survival over minimising hydraulic resistance by narrowing xylem distally or of their vascular systems would be structured differently from those of trees growing under more benign conditions. Conduits were observed to narrow towards the periphery of vascular system within all members of all…

  • Rapid deforestation and fragmentation of Chilean Temperate Forests

    Three land-cover maps were derived from satellite imagery acquired over 25 years (1975, 1990 and 2000), and were used to assess the patterns of deforestation and forest fragmentation in the coastal range of south-central Chile. Between 1975 and 2000, there was a reduction in natural forest area of 67% in the study area, which is…

  • Challenges to the generality of WBE theory

    A critique of the use of WBE as a general tool with proposals that more complex models are necessary to accurately deal with the environmentally influential factors which effect natural forest communities. Coomes, D.A. 2006 PDF 

  • Long-Term Effects of Wild fire on Ecosystem Properties Across an Island Area Gradient

    Boreal forest soils play an important role in the global carbon cycle by functioning as a large terrestrial carbon sink or source, and the alteration of fire regime through global change phenomena may influence this role. In this study a system of forested lake islands in the boreal zone of Sweden for which fire frequency…