Elevational patterns in tree diversity of tropical montane rain forests with different soil nutrient conditions in Sulawesi, Indonesia

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Christoph Leuschner, since 7/2011
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems
• Term: from 2010 to 2012
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 175291499

Elevational patterns in tree diversity of old-growth tropical montane rain forests with different soil nutrient conditions will be investigated in Sulawesi, Indonesia, using a replicated factorial sampling design based on 27 plots of 0.24 ha. The study should further our understanding of the factors that determine high tree diversity in tropical rain forests in terms of species richness, community composition and phylogenetic diversity. It is hypothesised that: (1) changes in floristic and phylogenetic tree community composition are primarily explained by the elevational gradient, and tree species richness generally decreases with increasing elevation, supporting a linear relationship to the elevational temperature gradient; (2) tree community composition is secondarily related to the variation in soil nutrient conditions, and sites with intermediate soil fertility show highest tree diversity, supporting the hypothesis that tree species richness is a unimodal function of productivity or of other measures of nutrient supply rates. The project further addresses the importance of Southeast Asian montane rain forests as carbon stocks by evaluating the magnitude and variation in aboveground biomass (AGB) depending on tree species composition and related functional traits, following the hypothesis that (3) regional variation in AGB of montane forests of Sulawesi is largely determined by the presence of tropical taxa of the Fagaceae.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemalige Antragstellerin: Dr. Heike Culmsee, until 6/2011