Trees, lianas and the maintenance of species diversity in tropical forests

Determining the mechanisms that maintain species diversity and explain species distributions are central goals in ecology. Recent empirical evidence supports two putative mechanisms for species diversity maintenance and distribution for tropical tree communities; in particular, negative density dependence and habitat specialization. Previous studies, however, have omitted plant groups other than trees, and thus conclusions about the generality of plant distribution and diversity maintenance mechanisms remain unresolved. In this talk I review the evidence for the maintenance of both liana and tree species diversity and distribution and marshal evidence for key life-history strategies to explain why diversity maintenance and distribution of these two growth forms are fundamentally different.