Introduction
Many species of dipterocarps are emergence trees and are classified as shade tolerance species. Their seeds normally germinate under the canopy shade and their seedlings could stay ‘dormant’ in the seedling bank while waiting for a gap to be created. Low light condition (1-5% sunlight), with high proportions of long-wavelength red and infrared light, is insufficient to sustain the seedling growth and development. Thus, the availability of gaps is critical for the growth and development of dipterocarp seedlings. Gap size is important in forest regeneration as it influences environmental factors such as light, air and soil temperature and relative air and soil humidity. Hence, the greater the gap size the more variable its microclimate tends to be compared to the condition under the intact forest canopy. Light intensity, soil temperature and air temperature tend to increase while humidity decreases as the gap size increased (Torquebiau 1988, Brown 1993, Endler 1993). However, the climatic difference in a gap is not due to its size per se, but on the architecture and arrangement of surrounding tree crown (Endler 1993). In fact, the distribution of solar radiation is mainly determined by the forest architecture and tree canopies (Steege 1994). This paper reports and discusses the response of a dipterocarp species, Hopea odorata, to different canopy opening in two contrasting forest types in Peninsular Malaysia. …
Sources: 8th Round-Table Conference on Dipterocarps
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