Rainforest composition and succession on a South Pacific island

Abstract

Interest in the dynamics and ecology of tropical forests has increased in recent years. However, the vast majority of studies undertaken by researchers in tropical environments have focused on neotropical forests and ignored old-world paleotropical forests. The rainforest on the Island of Tutuila, American Samoa, is a mixed-species paleotropical rainforest. Because much of the island is still covered by mature, native tropical rainforest, Tutuila represents one of the best locations to study paleotropical rainforest in the South Pacific. This thesis reports on the tree composition of different forest communities on Tutuila and employs indirect ordination tools such as detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) to describe two previously unidentified forest communities. This thesis also identifies the successional pathway followed by the rainforest on Tutuila as it regenerates in abandoned agricultural sites and reverts into mature forest stands.