Widespread stem snapping but limited mortality caused by a category 5 hurricane on the Caribbean Island of Dominica

• Published in: Forest ecology and management 2023-03, Vol.532, p.120833, Article 120833
• Main Authors: Taylor, Benton N., Stedman, Elvis, Van Bloem, Skip J., Whitmire, Stefanie L., DeWalt, Saara J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amanoa caribaea; Cyclone; Dacryodes excelsa; Disturbance; Lesser Antilles; Size-related mortality; Topography; Typhoon
• ISSN: 0378-1127; 1872-7042
• DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2023.120833

•>3/4 of trees were severely damaged by one of the strongest hurricanes on record.•Despite widespread damage, only 10% of trees were immediately killed.•Biomass loss was >5 times greater than Hurricane Hugo’s impact on Puerto Rico.•Taller trees and species with low wood density were most susceptible.•Species varied widely in damage and contribution to biomass/carbon loss. Hurricanes are projected to increase in frequency and severity over the coming century, and predicting the effects of strong hurricanes on forest communities requires an understanding of the damage patterns caused to individual trees and what drives those damage patterns. To better understand damage patterns caused by a category 5 hurricane, we censused nine permanent vegetation plots across the island of Dominica, West Indies, nine months after Hurricane Maria took a direct path over the island. We measured size, damage, and mortality for all adult trees, and measured wood density and carbon content for the 44 most common species to calculate biomass and carbon relocation from the hurricane. Despite widespread major tree damage (76% of trees), mortality nine months after the hurricane was relatively low (10% of trees). The most common damage types were stem snapping (40% of trees) and major branch damage (26% of trees), but the damage types with the highest rates of mortality were uprooting and being crushed by a neighboring tree (33% and 47% of uprooted and crushed trees died, respectively). Larger individual trees and species with lower wood density were more susceptible to snapping, uprooting and mortality, and trees on steeper slopes were more prone to being crushed by neighboring trees. Hurricane Maria caused an average loss of 44 Mg ha−1 of aboveground carbon and 90.3 Mg ha−1 of aboveground biomass. Synthesis – Trees in these hurricane-prone forests show a strong ability to survive extremely strong storms even when severely damaged, but substantial amounts of forest carbon are redistributed to the forest floor even when mortality rates are relatively low. Our data suggest that these hurricane-prone forests will continue to shift toward smaller, high wood-density species with increasing hurricane frequency and intensity.