High beta diversity of gaps contributes to plot-level tree diversity in a tropical forest

Canopy gaps in tropical forests have been hypothesised to play a major role in maintaining the diversity of forest tree communities. But empirical studies have found mixed support for this hypothesis: the average diversity of gap and non-gap (closed-canopy) sites is typically small and often statistically undetectable. One overlooked factor, however, is how small individual gap versus non-gap differences may accumulate across sites and potentially have a large effect on forest diversity at the plot scale. In this study, we investigated differences in the sapling richness, density, and composition for 124 treefall gaps and 200 non-gap sites in the 50 ha tropical forest plot at Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama.The analyses utilized canopy height data from the years 2003, 2004, and 2012, as well as tree census data from 2005, 2010, and 2015 in the BCI plot. All datasets are also available on Smithsonian repository at https://doi.org/10.5479/data.bci20140711. Please cite the full datasets as: <b>Condit R., Perez, R., Aguilar, S., Lao, S., Foster, R., Hubbell, S.P. 2019. Complete data from the Barro Colorado 50-ha plot: 423617 trees, 35 years, 2019 version. </b><b>https://doi.org/10.15146/5xcp-0d46</b>. For additional information, please consult the Methods section in the paper.