Tropical trees in a wind-exposed island ecosystem: height-diameter allometry and size at onset of maturity

1. Tropical tree species adapted to high wind environments might be expected to differ systematically in terms of stem allometry and life-history patterns, as compared with species found in less windy forests. We quantified height-diameter (H-D) allometries and relative size at onset of maturity (RSOM) for rainforest tree and tree fern species native to Dominica, West Indies, an island that experiences some of the highest average wind speeds pantropically. 2. H-D allometries for 17 Dominican angiosperm tree species were strongly concave on a log-log scale with asymptotic heights ranging from 9-32 m among species, averaging 25 m for canopy trees. H-D allometries for species-pooled data deviated strongly from recorded patterns for other tropical forest trees: asymptotic heights for trees in Dominica were 30-116% lower than those recorded for continental rainforest trees in Australia, South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. In a subset of canopy trees sampled in steep, sheltered valleys...