Chronic leaf harvesting reduces reproductive success of a tropical dry forest palm in northern Mexico
Description
This data represents results from a defoliation experiment that began in the reproductive season 2010-2011. We used palms not been harvested in the two previous years. We mapped and measured all Brahea aculeata stems and harvesting treatments were randomly assigned. All palms used in the experiment were healthy and located in the same stand with similar forest cover and altitude (520-540 m asl). The straight distance among individuals was of no more than 400 m. The density of all size individuals at each plot was very similar with 180-220 individuals/625 m2. During the first three years (2011-2014) individuals were subjected to one of three annual harvest treatments. The treatments applied were as those traditionally used in the area and above outlined: 1) High harvest (H) and 2) Low harvest (L) and 3) Control (C), where no leaves were removed. In the first part of the experiment (2011-2014), all size palms (seedlings 5 cm height up to 8 m stems) were subjected to annual leaf harvesting to explore effects on functional and demographic patterns. In the second part of the study, we selected large reproductive individuals (2.5-3.0 m high) from the original dataset and subjected them to a more intensive management (semiannual frequency with ), which is also common at the study area. Thus, in this study we compared the leaf and reproductive traits over six year of study which include measurement before harvesting (2010-2011) and represents the baseline to compare the effects of leaf harvesting treatments, the annual harvest (2011-2014) and the semiannual harvest (2014-2016). We measured leaf traits and reproductive traits and explore possible trade-offs between the leaf and reproductive function.