Vertical stratification collapses under seasonal shifts in climate

Aim: Tropical forests are vertically complex, and offer unique niche opportunities in the form of climate-, habitat-, and resource-gradients from ground to canopy. Rainforest species organize within this vertical spatial gradient and recent macro-ecological research suggests that the highest levels of vertical stratification occur in structurally complex and climatically stable tropical rainforests. Yet, patterns of verticality are typically derived across latitude, linking annual precipitation regimes to canopy utilization and vertical stratification of communities in space. However, although the tropics are not thermally variable, they do have strong seasonality in rainfall—a temporal component that is missed in macro-scale studies. We hypothesise that verticality of ecological communities responds to seasonality in climate, particularly rainfall.

Location: Sierra Llorona, Colón Province, Panama.

Taxon: Amphibians.

Methods: We performed 121 ground-to-canopy surveys across the...