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\"Islands represent unique opportunities to examine human interaction with the natural environment. They capture the human imagination as remote, vulnerable and exotic, yet there is comparatively little understanding of their basic geology, geography, or the impact of island colonization by plants, animals and humans. This detailed study of island environments focuses on nine island groups, including Hawaii, New Zealand and the British Isles, exploring their differing geology, geography, climate and soils, as well as the varying effects of human actions. It illustrates the natural and anthropogenic disturbances common to island groups, all of which face an uncertain future clouded by extinctions of endemic flora and fauna, growing populations of invasive species, and burgeoning resident and tourist populations. Examining the natural and human history of each island group from early settlement onwards, the book provides a critique of the concept of sustainable growth and offers realistic guidelines for future island management\"-- Provided by publisher.

1. Root, stem and leaf traits are thought to be functionally coordinated to maximize the efficiency of acquiring and using limited resources. However, evidence is mixed for consistent whole-plant trait coordination among woody plants, and we lack a clear understanding of the adaptive value of root traits along soil resource gradients. If fine roots are the below-ground analogue to leaves, then low specific root length (SRL) and high tissue density should be common on infertile soil. Here, we test the prediction that root, stem and leaf traits and relative growth rate respond in unison with soil fertility gradients. 2. We measured fine root, stem and leaf traits and relative growth rate on individual seedlings of 66 tree species grown in controlled conditions. Our objectives were (i) to determine whether multiple root traits align with growth rate, leaf and stem traits and with each other and (ii) to quantify the relationships between community-weighted mean root traits and two strong soil fertility gradients that differed in spatial extent and community composition. 3. At the species level, fast growth rates were associated with low root and stem tissue density and high specific leaf area. SRL and root diameter were not clearly related to growth rate and loaded on a separate principal component from the plant economic spectmm. 4. At the community level, growth rate was positively related to soil fertility, and root tissue density (RTD) and branching were negatively related to soil fertility. SRL was negatively related and root diameter was positively related to soil fertility on the large-scale gradient that included ectomycorrhizal angiosperms. 5. Synthesis. Root, stem and leaf tissue traits of tree seedlings are coordinated and influence fitness along soil fertility gradients. RTD responds in unison with above-ground traits to soil fertility gradients; however, root traits are multidimensional because SRL is orthogonal to the plant economic spectrum. In contrast to leaves, trees are not constrained in the way they construct fine roots: plants can construct high or low SRL roots of any tissue density. High RTD is the most consistent below-ground trait that reflects adaptation to infertile soil.

Prioritization is indispensable for the management of biological invasions, as recognized by the Convention on Biological Diversity, its current strategic plan, and specifically Aichi Target 9 that concerns invasive alien species. Here we provide an overview of the process, approaches and the data needs for prioritization for invasion policy and management, with the intention of informing and guiding efforts to address this target. Many prioritization schemes quantify impact and risk, from the pragmatic and action-focused to the data-demanding and science-based. Effective prioritization must consider not only invasive species and pathways (as mentioned in Aichi Target 9), but also which sites are most sensitive and susceptible to invasion (not made explicit in Aichi Target 9). Integrated prioritization across these foci may lead to future efficiencies in resource allocation for invasion management. Many countries face the challenge of prioritizing with little capacity and poor baseline data. We recommend a consultative, science-based process for prioritizing impacts based on species, pathways and sites, and outline the information needed by countries to achieve this. This should be integrated into a national process that incorporates a broad suite of social and economic criteria. Such a process is likely to be feasible for most countries.

A central goal of functional ecology is to determine how independent functional traits are selectively filtered by environmental conditions to improve our understanding of the mechanisms of community assembly. Soil fertility clearly influences community composition, but it is unclear which plant functional traits are most strongly associated with gradients of increasing nutrient limitation. We hypothesized that leaf economic traits and stem tissue density would be strongly associated with soil fertility given their direct relationship to soil resource acquisition and use. In contrast, we hypothesized that functional traits that are commonly associated with competition for light (maximum height), shade tolerance (seed mass) and resistance to disturbance (bark thickness) would be unrelated to soil fertility. We measured 13 functional traits from 30 tree species occurring in 40 plots across a soil fertility gradient in a mature warm temperate rain forest in Northland, New Zealand. Principal component analysis was used to assess the dimensionality and independence of the functional traits and the soil properties, and regression was used to determine the relationships between community‐weighted mean traits and the soil fertility gradient. We observed a coordinated response of multiple independent traits to soil fertility. Consistent with our hypothesis, species associated with low‐fertility soils had comparatively ‘slower’ leaves (i.e. low SLA and leaf N and P, and high LDMC and thickness) and higher stem tissue density than species associated with high‐fertility soils. Unexpectedly, we observed that species associated with low‐fertility soils had larger maximum heights, thicker bark and lower seed mass. Tall trees can persist on poor soils. Thick bark may be a defensive strategy for trees growing in resource‐limited sites and large‐seeded shade‐tolerant species can persist in fertile soils where light is more limiting. Synthesis. Species sorting can occur over short distances in ecosystems where topographically driven variation in soil fertility leads to complete compositional turnover. Inferences about species distributions based on single‐trait spectrums can be misleading when environmental gradients sort species by filtering multiple independent traits simultaneously. Identifying the multidimensional trait combinations that promote fitness will advance both theory development and ecological restoration.

Interactions between tropical cyclones and wildfires occur widely and can tip closed forests into open-canopy structures that initiate a ‘grass–fire’ cycle. We examined cyclone–fire interactions in a monodominant tropical montane pine forest in the Dominican Republic using remotely-sensed imagery to quantify damage from fires between 1986 and 2004, a category 1 cyclone in 1998, and an extensive wildfire in 2005. We also measured forest structure and composition 14.7 years after the 2005 fire. The area inside the 2005 burn scars (fire perimeters) totaled 25,206 ha, of which 81% burned and 14% was cyclone damaged. Cyclone damage made the fire markedly more extensive and severe—high-severity fires were > 3 times more frequent with high-severity cyclone damage than no cyclone damage—but these markedly synergistic effects were restricted to areas that had not burned for at least 19 years before the 2005 fire. Though earlier fires from 1986 to 2004 were small and low-severity, they were sufficient, when present, to prevent high-severity fire in 2005 irrespective of cyclone severity. In areas with strong cyclone–fire interactions, there was a complete loss of pine canopies, yet these stands had abundant pine canopy recruitment by 2019 and showed no evidence of compositional shifts toward open-canopy structures with pyrogenic herbaceous understories, illustrating the resilience of this ecosystem to a range of cyclone–fire synergies. However, the future resilience of tropical montane pine forests to cyclone–fire synergies is uncertain as climate change increases the intensity of cyclones and frequency of drought-triggered fires in these ecosystems.

Tree growth–survival relationships link two demographic processes that individually dictate the composition, structure and functioning of forest ecosystems. While these relationships vary intra‐specifically, it remains unclear how this reflects environmental variation and disturbance. We examined the influence of a 700‐m elevation gradient and an Mw = 6.7 earthquake on intra‐specific variability in growth–survival relationships. We expected that survival models that incorporated recent growth would be better supported than those only using other factors known to influence tree survival. We used a permanent plot network that representatively sampled a monodominant Nothofagus forest in New Zealand's Southern Alps in 1974 and that was remeasured seven times through to 2009. The relationships were assessed using pre‐earthquake growth and survival, pre‐earthquake growth and post‐earthquake survival (0–5 years post‐earthquake), and post‐earthquake growth and survival (5+ years post‐earthquake). Survival was related to growth of 4504 trees on 216 plots using Bayesian modelling. We hypothesised there would be a positive, logistic relationship between growth and survival. Pre‐earthquake, we found a positive, logarithmic growth–survival relationship at all elevations. At higher elevations, trees grew more slowly but had higher survival than trees at lower elevations, supporting our hypothesised demographic trade‐off with elevation. The earthquake altered growth–survival relationships from those found pre‐earthquake and 0–5 years post‐earthquake survival held little relationship with growth. A strong, logarithmic growth–survival relationship developed 5+ years post‐earthquake because of enhanced survival of fast‐growing trees yet low survival of slow‐growing trees. Synthesis. Our findings demonstrate a trend in growth–survival relationships along an elevation gradient. If we assume a gradual climate warming is the equivalent of a forest stand shifting to a lower elevation, then data from our pre‐earthquake period suggest that tree growth–survival relationships at any elevation could adjust to faster growth and lower survival. We also show how these novel growth–survival relationships could be altered by periodic disturbance. Tree growth–survival relationships link two demographic processes important to forest ecosystems. Trends in growth–survival relationships were demonstrated along an elevation gradient. The nature of these relationships was altered by an earthquake.

*Hydraulic failure explains much of the increased rates of drought-induced tree mortality around the world, underlining the importance of understanding how species distributions are shaped by their vulnerability to embolism. Here we determined which physiological traits explain species climatic limits among temperate rainforest trees in a region where chronic water limitation is uncommon.*We quantified the variation in stem embolism vulnerability and leaf turgor loss point among 55 temperate rainforest tree species in New Zealand and tested which traits were most strongly related to species climatic limits.*Leaf turgor loss point and stem P50 (tension at which hydraulic conductance is at 50% of maximum) were uncorrelated. Stem P50 and hydraulic safety margin were the most strongly related physiological traits to climatic limits among angiosperms, but not among conifers. Morphological traits such as wood density and leaf dry matter content did not explain species climatic limits.*Stem embolism resistance and leaf turgor loss point appear to have evolved independently. Embolism resistance is the most useful predictor of the climatic limits of angiosperm trees. High embolism resistance in the curiously overbuilt New Zealand conifers suggests that their xylem properties may be more closely related to growing slowly under nutrient limitation and to resistance to microbial decomposition.

Aim Woody ecosystems provide critical ecosystem functions and services but are increasingly threatened as invasive pathogens spread globally. Myrtle rust, caused by Austropuccinia psidii, arrived in New Zealand in 2017 and infects at least 12 of 18 species in the susceptible Myrtaceae plant family. Among these are species of structural, successional and cultural importance. We aim to assess whether the functional consequences of Myrtaceae loss could be mitigated if co‐occurring species with shared functional attributes are able to replace them. Location New Zealand (but with concepts and methodologies that apply globally). Methods Using a nationwide forest and shrubland plot data set, we assessed community vulnerability to the loss of Myrtaceae species by analysing proportional changes in average trait values when they are absent and produced spatial predictions indicating where species loss might have the greatest impact on community functionality. We then assessed whether compensatory infilling by co‐occurring species would mediate community vulnerability. Results Forests and shrublands containing Kunzea ericoides and Leptospermum scoparium are highly vulnerable to their loss. Areas most vulnerable overall are the central and south‐eastern North Island, north‐eastern South Island and Stewart Island. For all species, compensatory infilling moderated the impact of their loss. However, if co‐occurring Myrtaceae were unable to respond, possibly if they were also infected, community vulnerability almost always increased because infilling species had different functional attributes, compounding the functional impact. Main Conclusions Early successional woody plant communities and Myrtaceae‐dominated old‐growth forests are at most risk. Our spatial assessment of species‐level functional impacts from myrtle rust will facilitate better‐informed landscape‐level responses. Management actions and monitoring can now be targeted to areas and communities at greatest risk of losing ecosystem‐level processes.

Hurricane winds can have large impacts on forest structure and dynamics. To date, most evaluations of hurricane impacts have focused on short-term responses after a hurricane, often lacked pre-hurricane measurements, and missed responses occurring over longer time scales. Here, we use a long-term data set (1974-2009, 35 years) of tree stems (>3 cm in diameter at 1.3 m aboveground) in four sites (0.35 ha in total) in montane rain forest (∼1600 m elevation) in Jamaica to investigate the patterns of crown damage in individual stems by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, and how subsequent growth and mortality were affected by hurricane damage, sprouting, and the incidence of multiple stems. Topographical position on a mountain ridge was the best predictor of crown damage, followed by crown size and species identity. The average diameter growth rate of stems that survived the hurricane was greater than that pre-hurricane for the whole 21-yr post-hurricane period. Growth rates of stems with damaged crowns increased less than those with undamaged crowns; differences in growth rate between damaged and undamaged trees disappeared after 11 years. Hurricane-damaged stems had two to eight times higher mortality than undamaged stems for 19 years post hurricane. Many stems sprouted shortly after the hurricane, but few sprouts managed to establish (grow to >3 cm diameter at breast height). However, sprouting and multi-stemming were associated with reduced mortality rate, particularly in damaged trees. From an initial population of 1670 stems in 1974, 54% were still alive in 2009 (21 years after the hurricane). We conclude that despite the high frequency of hurricane damage to tree crowns and the subsequent increased mortality rate in this hurricane-prone tropical montane forest, many stems will be hit and recover from several hurricanes in their lifetime.

Background: Over 80% of New Zealand’s indigenous forests are in public ownership with logging prohibited, and logging of private indigenous forests is restricted to sustainable harvesting only. Such limitations are highly unusual globally and were imposed only in the last few decades of the 20th century. Previously, the national goal had been indigenous wood production in perpetuity. Here we review the role of forestry science in this outcome, and in particular in relation to the policies and practices adopted by the New Zealand Forest Service. Methods: Literature review Results: As early as 1900, it was recognised that economically viable management of indigenous forests for timber production was marginal at best. Nevertheless, the Forest Service, from its formation in 1919 to its abolition in 1987, advocated sustainable commercial management of indigenous forests. However, it failed to bring any significant areas under such management nor prevented conversion of substantial tracts of old-growth forest to exotic plantations or agriculture. Indigenous forest logging would have continued until commercial exhaustion of tall conifer species if a confluence of factors (urbanization, political upheaval, rise of an assertive conservation movement, and declining economic contribution) had not weakened the influence of provincial logging advocacy. Forestry research played a minor role in this saga as it focused on the technical issues of indigenous silviculture (e.g., coupe vs group vs single-tree harvesting methods) while the main drivers of change were economic, social, and cultural. Conclusions: Commercially valuable indigenous forests were protected only when the political cost of continuing logging was greater than that of halting it. However, it is an open question if the current policy settings will remain. Changes in governance (including increased Māori participation), land use change, planted indigenous forests and formation of exotic-indigenous forest communities will affect public attitudes as regards their use. If indigenous forestry science is to be of more consequence than in the past, New Zealand will need clear forestry goals and policies to deal with these changed circumstances, and the will to implement them.