VINE INFESTATION OF LARGE REMNANT TREES IN LOGGED FOREST IN SABAH, MALAYSIA: BIOMECHANICAL FACILITATION IN VINE SUCCESSION

Abstract

Seventy-nine percent of trees larger than 20 cm DBH remaining after logging in the Ulu Segama Forest Reserve carried vines in their crowns 13 -14 years later. On 62% of the vineinfested trees, the vines grew over from neighboring trees; on the remaining trees, vines climbed up their stems from the ground. Isolated trees with diameters exceeding the maximum support diameters used by the common vines often were infested with twining and tendril-climbing vines that climbed up root and branch twiners. This biomechanical dependence of some types of climbers on others results in a successional sequence of vine colonization of isolated remnant trees.