Data from: Cavities and the demographic performance of tropical rainforest trees

In tropical forests, trees often have damage in the form of visible
cavities. However, the impacts of these cavities on tropical tree growth
and survival are unknown, despite potential implications for the global
carbon cycle. Here, we integrate 10 years of forest dynamics data with a
survey of cavity presence on 25,450 rainforest trees (> 5cm in
diameter) in the 20 ha Xishuangbanna plot in southern China. We found that
cavities negatively impacted tree growth, but not survival, with growth of
smaller trees more negatively affected by cavities. Variation in the
impact of cavities was not explained by functional traits related to
species life history strategy (specific leaf area, wood density, seed
mass, leaf %N, leaf %P). These results suggest that cavities may affect
both the compositional and carbon dynamics of tropical forests, but
further research is needed to determine what drives variation among tree
species in cavity impact.