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...研究目的：热带森林具有复杂的垂直结构，从地面至冠层的气候、生境与资源梯度为其提供了独特的生态位机遇。雨林物种沿该垂直空间梯度分布，现有宏观生态学研究表明，在结构复杂且气候稳定的热带雨林中，群落垂直分层程度最高。然而，当前关于垂直格局的研究多基于纬度梯度展开，将年降水格局与群落冠层利用及空间垂直分层相关联。尽管热带地区热环境波动微弱，但存在显著的降雨季节性——这一时间维度特征在宏观尺度研究中常被忽略。本研究提出假说：生态群落的垂直结构响应气候季节波动，尤以降雨季节性变化为甚。 研究区域：巴拿马科隆省（Colón Province）洛罗纳山脉（Sierra Llorona）。 研究类群：两栖动物（Amphibians）。 研究方法：我们共开展了121次从地面至冠层的调查，覆盖……