Landscape, stand and tree characteristics influence the distribution of lightning damage in Central African forests

Lightning is an important but understudied disturbance in tropical forests. We surveyed 134 km of transects in two Central African forests and identified 121 strike locations. Trees on ridges were more likely to show damage than those in valleys, while at the stand scale, taller trees and trees with wider canopies—and some species independent of size—were more often struck. These results suggest that lightning acts as a selective force, possibly reinforcing ridge–valley differences and influencing forest structure and composition.

Together, the datasets provided here support analyses of how landscape, stand-level, and tree-level characteristics influence the spatial distribution of lightning damage in Central African forests.