Abstract:
This dissertation examines the effect of abiotic factors on the growth of tropical
dry forest tree seedlings, and the developmental plasticity that allows seedlings to
respond to those factors. Different species of tropical dry forest tree seedling are
demonstrated to reverse ranks in response on different combinations of light and soil
environments that occur within the tropical dry forest. This is interpreted to indicate that
tropical dry forest species may be niche-differentiated with respect to soil. This is found
to conflict with the assumption of ecological equivalence central to neutral models of
community structure.
Neutral models are examined further and it is determined that fitness manifolds
cannot reconcile the niche-differentiation and neutral perspectives without restrictive
assumptions about the distribution of environmental heterogeneity in nature.
