Cyclone damage to tropical rain forests: Species- and community-level impacts

Severe Tropical Cyclone 'Larry' caused damage to 10 long-term 0.5 ha monitoring plots in the rain forests of Queensland's Wet Tropics on 20 March 2006. We assessed the community-level damage and the impact of the cyclone on the most abundant tree species in each plot. Damage was positively correlated with distance from the cyclone eye, though some plots received less damage than predicted owing to topographic shielding. Damage was patchy within plots, which is reflected in the range of damage-classes recorded for each species, but there are broad trends in the type of response shown by different species. At the plot level, some species were either more susceptible or less susceptible to damage than the rest of the community. Species tended to show similar patterns of damage between plots with different community damage ratings. We discuss these response types in terms of adaptive tolerance to particular wind speeds and the trade-off between frequently losing canopy volume in light winds, or rarely suffering substantial damage. We suggest that increased frequency of intense cyclones may affect the distribution of some species in the future, with those species most susceptible to high levels of damage at lower wind speeds becoming restricted to leeward-facing slopes and upland areas away from the coast, and an increased abundance of resilient species in lowland coastal areas.