Biotic interactions and disturbance have long been recognized as strong forces shaping plant communities. Due to the complexity of studying multi-species interactions and their responses to environmental change, quantifying the impact of disturbance on species interactions remains a challenge. Network analysis has been proposed as a simple yet powerful tool to better understand and predict spatio-temporal changes in community composition and structure. We used networks built from 16 years of tree census data from the Luquillo Forest Dynamics Plot (LFDP) to quantify temporal variation in species richness and composition, and explore the effect of past land-use and hurricane disturbance on the structure of the tree community.
Results/Conclusions
We found that plant communities in low-intensity disturbance areas had lower species richness than plant communities in high-intensity disturbance areas. While our results suggested minimal spatial changes in community composition in the LFDP, we did find strong evidence of temporal species turnover. In addition, a greater number of species interactions were realized in high disturbance areas compared to low-intensity disturbance areas, and high-intensity disturbance areas displayed only slight changes in network structure over time. These findings suggest that tree communities in disturbed areas might be more resilient to future changes in environment than previously thought.