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Science 26 May 2000:
Vol. 288. no. 5470, p. 1297
DOI: 10.1126/science.288.5470.1297f
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Tropical forests contain a very high diversity of tree species, but there is little baseline information that describes the population structure and dispersion of individual tree species, many of which are rare. Condit et al. (p. 1414) now present a massive survey of all stems greater than 1 centimeter in diameter, in forest plots 25 to 52 hectares in area, at six sites in Asia and Central America. This large sample of more than 1000 species shows that most tree species are aggregated and not randomly distributed or overdispersed, as many previous reports have suggested. Aggregation is maintained even among very large trees, and rare species are more aggregated than common ones. This new wealth of data paves the way for greater understanding of the factors controlling diversity in tropical forests.




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