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In mangrove forests, soil salinity is one of the most significant environmental factors determining mangrove forest distribution and productivity as it limits plant water uptake and carbon gain. However, salinity control on mangrove productivity through plant hydraulics has not been investigated by existing mangrove models. Thus, we present a new individual-based model linked with plant hydraulics to incorporate physiological characterization of mangrove growth under salt stress. Plant hydraulics was associated with mangroves nutrient uptake and biomass allocation apart from water flux and carbon gain. The developed model was performed for two-coexisting species of Rhizophora stylosa and Bruguiera gymnorrhiza in a subtropical mangrove forest in Japan. The model predicted that the productivity of both species was affected by soil salinity through downregulation of stomatal conductance, while B. gymnorrhiza trees grow faster and suppress the growth of R. stylosa trees by shading that resulted in a B. gymnorrhiza-dominated forest under low soil salinity conditions (B. gymnorrhiza compared to R. stylosa, leading to an increase in biomass of R. stylosa despite the enhanced salt stress (> 30 ‰). These predicted patterns in forest structures across soil salinity gradient remarkably agreed with field data, highlighting the control of salinity on productivity and tree competition as factors that shape the mangrove forest structures. The model reproducibility of forest structures was also supported by the predicted self-thinning processes, which likewise agreed with field data. In addition, the mangroves morphological adjustment to increasing soil salinity – by decreasing transpiration and increasing hydraulic conductance – was reasonably predicted. Aside from the soil salinity, seasonal dynamics in atmospheric variables (solar radiation and temperature) was highlighted as factors influencing mangrove productivity in a subtropical region. The physiological principle-based improved model has the potential to be extended to other mangrove forests in various environmental settings, thus contributing to a better understanding of mangrove dynamics under future global climate change.

Aim: Mangrove wetlands span broad geographical gradients, resulting in functionally diverse tree communities. We asked whether latitudinal variation, allometric scaling relationships and species composition influence mangrove forest structure and biomass allocation across biogeographical regions and distinct coastal morphologies. Location: Global. Time period: Present. Major taxa studied: Mangrove ecosystems. Methods: We built the largest field‐based dataset on mangrove forest structure and biomass to date (c. 2,800 plots from 67 countries) to address macroecological questions pertaining to structural and functional diversity of mangroves spanning biogeographical and coastal morphology gradients. We used frequentist inference statistics and machine learning models to determine environmental drivers that control biomass allocation within and across mangrove communities globally. Results: Allometric scaling relationships and forest structural complexity were consistent across biogeographical and coastal morphology gradients, suggesting that mangrove biomass is controlled by regional forcings rather than by latitude or species composition. For instance, nearly 40% of the global variation in biomass was explained by regional climate and hydroperiod, revealing nonlinear thresholds that control biomass accumulation across broad geographical gradients. Furthermore, we found that ecosystem‐level carbon stocks (average 401 ± 48 MgC/ha, covering biomass and the top 1 m of soil) varied little across diverse coastal morphologies, reflecting regional bottom‐up geomorphic controls that shape global patterns in mangrove biomass apportioning. Main conclusions Our findings reconcile views of wetland and terrestrial forest macroecology. Similarities in stand structural complexity and cross‐site size–density relationships across multiscale environmental gradients show that resource allocation in mangrove ecosystems is independent of tree size and invariant to species composition or latitude. Mangroves follow a universal fractal‐based scaling relationship that describes biomass allocation for several other terrestrial tree‐dominated communities. Understanding how mangroves adhere to these universal allometric rules can improve our ability to account for biomass apportioning and carbon stocks in response to broad geographical gradients.

Despite the global focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, the promise of impact to tropical coastlines and stochasticity of destruction caused by tropical cyclones remains unaltered, forcing human societies to adapt to new unadaptable scenarios. Super Cyclone Amphan’s landfall—the third cyclone of the season within the world’s largest mangrove forest—brought a new uncertainty to this undeveloped region of South Asia. How do vulnerable people deal with multiple disasters that limit necessary humanitarian response while still maintaining the natural environmental integrity of a system harboring critical wildlife populations and protecting people from further disaster? We explored this reality for the Sundarbans region using a remote sensing technique and found that the western part of Sundarbans mangroves was severely damaged by Amphan, suggesting that rapid remote sensing techniques can help direct resources, and recognize the eventuality that response will be a best effort for now. If 2020 is a window, multiple disaster management scenarios may become more common in the future. Yet, society’s obligation for maintaining environmental integrity remains unchanged.

Mangrove forests are salt-tolerant intertidal vegetation in tropical and subtropical areas. Mangrove ecosystems provide commercial products, valuable fisheries, and aquaculture resources, protect and stabilize coastlines, and are important carbon sinks. However, they are threatened globally by human activities such as deforestation, pollution, and development causing fragmentation between the well-preserved, restored, and disturbed mangrove forests. Despite this, mangroves can adapt and strive well and are notable well associated with microbial diversity. Here, we investigate the diversity of microbes in different environmental settings using preferred reporting items for systematic and meta-analyses (PRISMA) analysis for publications from Scopus and the Web of Science databases. We report publications since 1987, and observed an exponential increase in publications beginning in the year 2000, which may be associated with the development of molecular and sequencing technologies. Differences in bacterial diversity was observed across the well-preserved, restored, and disturbed mangrove environments. Disturbed mangrove forests had a higher diversity (70 unique taxon orders reported) compared to well-preserved (33 unique taxon orders reported) and restored forests (38 unique taxon orders reported). Based on our analysis, we found that the microbial community plays an important role in the survival and adaptability of mangroves under varying environmental conditions. Thus, there is a need and a lot of potential for research in the area of mangrove microbiology with reference to ecology, biogeochemistry, and geomorphology.

The present study aimed to identify the nutritional and antioxidant potential of mangrove fruits of Xylocarpus granatum, Sonneratia alba, and Bruguiera gymnorrhiza growing in Rawa Aopa Watumohai Na...

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Several ecological and biogeochemical processes in mangroves are influenced by crab activities through bioturbation, leaf litter consumption, or fecal deposition. Bioturbation might be influenced by crab burrow dynamics or surrounding abiotic and biotic factors or both. Therefore, it is necessary to examine burrow dynamics under different abiotic and biotic conditions. This study was conducted in the estuarine mangroves of Fukido River in the northern part of Ishigaki Island, Japan. Two transects consisting of five and seven 14-m diameter circular plots were established perpendicular to the mangrove/ocean interface. Spatial and seasonal burrow dynamics data were collected from five randomly chosen quadrates within each plot. Burrow density, renewed burrows per day, and collapsed burrows per day significantly varied spatially and seasonally. Burrow density strongly depended on sediment bulk density. Numbers of renewed and collapsed burrows per day were the same (R2 = 0.86) though they significantly differed among the four seasons with being lowest in the winter season. This suggests that temperature, precipitation and crabs occurrence might control seasonal burrow dynamics. Proportion of collapsed burrows were strongly and significantly correlated to sediment bulk density, salinity and sediment temperature, which suggests that sediment properties provide structural support for burrows maintenance. On the other hand, vegetation cover and sediment characteristics influence the proportion of renewed burrows. Burrow depth was significantly controlled by sediment particle size, which suggests that crabs do not create deeper burrow if sediments contain higher amount of coarse sand. Entrance diameter was correlated to percentage organic matter, salinity, fine sand and distance from the river that means seaward sites are occupied by smaller and shallow burrows. Our results suggest that the burrow dynamics depend on abiotic and biotic factors and are useful for understanding spatial and seasonal variations for estimating bioturbation effects on mangroves biogeochemical cycle.

Mangrove is classified as an important ecosystem along the shorelines of tropical and subtropical landmasses, which are being degraded at an alarming rate despite numerous international treaties having been agreed. Iskandar Malaysia (IM) is a fast-growing economic region in southern Peninsular Malaysia, where three Ramsar Sites are located. Since the beginning of the 21st century (2000–2019), a total loss of 2907.29 ha of mangrove area has been estimated based on medium-high resolution remote sensing data. This corresponds to an annual loss rate of 1.12%, which is higher than the world mangrove depletion rate. The causes of mangrove loss were identified as land conversion to urban, plantations, and aquaculture activities, where large mangrove areas were shattered into many smaller patches. Fragmentation analysis over the mangrove area shows a reduction in the mean patch size (from 105 ha to 27 ha) and an increase in the number of mangrove patches (130 to 402), edge, and shape complexity, where smaller and isolated mangrove patches were found to be related to the rapid development of IM region. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer (MODIS) Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) products were used to inspect the impact of fragmentation on the mangrove ecosystem process. The mean LAI and GPP of mangrove areas that had not undergone any land cover changes over the years showed an increase from 3.03 to 3.55 (LAI) and 5.81 g C m−2 to 6.73 g C m−2 (GPP), highlighting the ability of the mangrove forest to assimilate CO2 when it is not disturbed. Similarly, GPP also increased over the gained areas (from 1.88 g C m−2 to 2.78 g C m−2). Meanwhile, areas that lost mangroves, but replaced them with oil palm, had decreased mean LAI from 2.99 to 2.62. In fragmented mangrove patches an increase in GPP was recorded, and this could be due to the smaller patches (< 9 ha) and their edge effects where abundance of solar radiation along the edges of the patches may increase productivity. The impact on GPP due to fragmentation is found to rely on the type of land transformation and patch characteristics (size, edge, and shape complexity). The preservation of mangrove forests in a rapidly developing region such as IM is vital to ensure ecosystem, ecology, environment, and biodiversity conservation, in addition to providing economical revenue and supporting human activities.

Background and Objectives: In northern Vietnam, nearly 37,100 hectares of mangroves were lost from 1964&ndash, 1997 due to unsustainable harvest and deforestation for the creation of shrimp aquaculture ponds. To offset these losses, efforts in the late 1990s have resulted in thousands of hectares of mangroves being restored, but few studies to date have examined how effective these efforts are at creating restored mangrove forests that function similarly to the intact mangroves they are intended to replace. Materials and Methods: We quantified and compared soil carbon (C) stocks among restored (mono and mixed species) and intact mangrove forests in the provinces of Quang Ninh, Thai Binh, Nam Dinh and Thanh Hoa in northern Vietnam. A total of 96 soil cores up to a depth of 200 cm were collected every 25 m (25, 50, 75, 100, 125, and 150 m) along 16 linear transects that were 150 m long and perpendicular to the mangrove upland interface (six cores along each transect) at Quang Ninh (four transects), Thai Binh (five), Nam Dinh (four) and Thanh Hoa (three). Five-cm-long soil samples were then collected from the 0&ndash, 15 cm, 15&ndash, 30 cm, 30&ndash, 50 cm, 50&ndash, 100 cm, and &gt, 100 cm depth intervals of each soil core. Results: The study confirmed that the soil C stock of 20&ndash, 25-year-old restored mangrove forest (217.74 &plusmn, 16.82 Mg/ha) was not significantly different from that of intact mangrove forest (300.68 &plusmn, 51.61 Mg/ha) (p &gt, 0.05). Soil C stocks of Quang Ninh (323.89 &plusmn, 28.43 Mg/ha) were not significantly different from Nam Dinh (249.81 &plusmn, 19.09 Mg/ha), but both of those were significantly larger than Thai Binh (201.42 &plusmn, 27.65 Mg/ha) and Thanh Hoa (178.98 &plusmn, 30.82 Mg/ha) (p &lt, 0.05). Soil C stock differences among provinces could be due to their different geomorphological characteristics and mangrove age. Soil C stocks did not differ among mangroves that were restored with mixed mangrove species (289.75 &plusmn, 33.28 Mg/ha), Sonneratia caseolaris (L.) Engl. (255.67 &plusmn, 13.11 Mg/ha) or Aegiceras corniculatum (L.) Blanco (278.15 &plusmn, 43.86 Mg/ha), but soil C stocks of those mangroves were significantly greater than that of Kandelia obovata Sheue, Liu &amp, Yong (174.04 &plusmn, 20.38 Mg/ha) (p &lt, 0.05). Conclusion: There were significant differences in the soil C stocks of mangrove forests among species and provinces in northern Vietnam. The soil C stock of 20&ndash, 25-year-old restored mangrove forest was not significantly different from that of intact mangrove forest.

Mangrove forest conservation can help reduce global C emissions. Despite this benefit to climate change mitigation and adaptation, mangrove forests are being deforested or degraded at an alarming rate, though restoration efforts may offset these losses. The impacts of deforestation to C stocks are relatively intuitive and result in significant decreases in C stocks. It remains unclear how degradation from selective harvesting of trees affects C stocks or how effective restoration efforts are at restoring C stocks. Furthermore, total ecosystem C (TEC) stocks of pristine mangroves can significantly vary spatially. To address these issues, we conducted an intensive, national assessment of mangrove forests across Cambodia using a grid approach to: 1) examine how land use land cover (i.e., pristine, deforested, degraded, and restored forests) impacts TEC stocks, and 2) how TEC stocks vary spatially across the country. TEC stocks from deforested mangroves were always lower than pristine forests, resulting in an overall loss of 60% C (480 Mg C ha−1). However, TEC stocks from degraded and 25-year-old restored mangroves forests did not differ from pristine forests. Mean TEC in mangroves was 784.7 ± 30.1 Mg C ha−1, decreasing from 957.2 ± 32.8 Mg C ha−1 in the northern region to 628.9 ± 33.1 Mg C ha−1 in the central region to 386.2 ± 19.1 Mg C ha−1 in the southern region of Cambodia. Intensive sampling in mangroves across Cambodia verified impacts of deforestation reported elsewhere, revealed the lack of degradation impacts on TEC stocks, and demonstrated the effectiveness of restoration on TEC stocks after only 25 years. Our gridded sampling approach was able to capture spatial variability across Cambodia and provide a more realistic TEC stock information that can be used for national reporting or participation in C markets.

Friess et al. discuss the results of conservation efforts for mangrove forests in recent years., SCOPUS: le.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

International audience; Currently there is limited information to estimate accurate and reliable mangrove forest area in Cambodia. Previous estimates did not explicitly illustrate the spatial distribution of mangrove for the entire country however , according to Global Forest Resource Assessment 2010, Cambodia's mangrove area cover in 1990 and 2010 was calculated at 79,638 ha and 55,704 ha, respectively using extrapolation of 1992-1996 (original data from Remote Sensing of forest cover 1992/93 and 1996/97) for 1990 and extrapolation of 1996-2002 (original data from Remote Sensing of forest cover 1996/97 and 2002) for 2010. This study mapped the spatial distribution of Cambodia's mangrove forest derived from 30 m x 30 m spatial resolution and polygon spatial extent from Landsat 8 (L8) image. Publicly available Landsat data was acquired from Google Earth Engine (GEE) Explorer including the Landsat Surface Reflectance-Landsat 8 (L8) OLI/TIRS; Top-Of-Atmosphere (TOA) L8 32-Day Reflectance Composite; Landsat Archive Pre-Collection from US Geological Survey (USGS, 2015); VHR Google-derived images (Collin et al. 2014) and field data collection from 63 plots representing the entire Cambodia of Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP) to create a Google Fusion Table aiming at mapping the spatial resolution and extent. Random Forest (RF) Classifier, a supervised classification technique, was applied to three L8 images Archive Pre-Collection Level-1 (L8 OLI/TIRS) collected in December 2014, February 2015 and April 2015. Statistical analysis indicates the total area of mangrove forest cover reached 73,240ha with overall classification accuracy of 98.2%, 97.9% and 99.5% for three periods and the validation overall accuracy were 91.5%, 89.1% and 97.6%, respectively. Our findings suggest that L8 imagery and Google Earth Engine algorithm can be used to estimate area changes of mangrove forests in Cambodia with higher accuracy. The results of this study may be useful to assist decision making in planning for mangrove ecosystem restoration activities, evaluation of ecological services and in better estimation of carbon stock in mangrove forest. (Tier 1-default emission or Tier 3-plot data are more related to emission factor).

The mangroves are among the most at-risk coastal ecosystems, which are especially vulnerable to sea-level rise. This study aimed to know the growth capacity and biochemical defense of mangrove seedlings of Rhizophora mucronata under different sea water logging at experimental condition in Kendari bay, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. Results showed that maximum leaf area, intrinsic rate increase of leaf area and relative growth rate (RGR) of height of the R. mucronata seedlings were significantly higher at treatment of 45 cm from the ground than other treatments, whereas RGR of diameter was the higher at treatment of 30 cm from the ground. Meanwhile, half expansion period leaf area was almost similar for all treatment. However, the carbon and nitrogen ratio in leaves of R. mucronata seedlings was significantly higher at seawater logging of 0 cm from the ground. The flavonoid and vitamin C concentrations in R. mucronata seedlings were higher at higher level inundation indicating protective role of these compounds under seawater logging stress.

Information on aboveground biomass of mangrove forest at Rawa Aopa Watumohai National (RAWN) Park is fundamental for the management of mangroves (Lumnitzera racemosa Willd.) in the park. Allometric relationships of partial or whole L. racemosa trees were examined using independent variables D30, DBH, and DB or quadratics D302H, DBH2H, and DB2H from different individuals of L. racemosa trees. Aboveground biomass was estimated by allometric equations and tree census data. Results showed that the best fit for allometric models of stem biomass (WS) and leaf biomass (WL) used the independent variable of DBH2H, while the best fit for branch biomass (WB) used quadratic DB2H. The quadratic DBH2H is the most reliable parameter for estimating aboveground biomass of L. racemosa trees. Aboveground biomass of L. racemosa varied among stands, ranging from 26.23 to 191.01 ton ha−1. Biomass density of L. racemosa forest varied from 4.07 to 29.80 ton ha−1 m−1. The high aboveground biomass of L. racemosa indicates its high...

This study evaluated the litterfall dynamics of the mangrove Bruguiera gymnorrhiza along the Okukubi River, Okinawa Island, Japan. Leaf and stipule litterfalls occurred throughout the year, with respective distinct monthly patterns, and could governed by monthly day length as well as monthly maximum wind speed and monthly mean air temperature, respectively. Branch litterfall depended on monthly maximum wind speed and increased exponentially with increasing monthly maximum wind speed. Flower and propagule litterfalls might be influenced by monthly mean air temperature and monthly day length, respectively. Leaves contributed the most to total litterfall and represented 71.0 and 68.7% of total litterfall in the first and second years, respectively. Annual leaf litterfall per plot was almost constant regardless of the tree density of the plot. Bruguiera gymnorrhiza showed a positive correlation between leaf production and reproductive organ production.

Analuddin K, Septiana A, Sharma S, Hagihara A. 2016. Crown shape dynamics of dense mangrove Kandelia obovata standsin Manko Wetland, Okinawa Island, Japan. Biodiversitas 17: 865-872. The objectives of this study were to elucidate the crown structure dynamics for dense mangrove stands, and to know the crown shape maintenances and its important role for ensuring the stability and vitality the crowded mangrove forest. The growth parameters of K. obovata Shue, Liu & Yong stands, such as tree height H (m), height at the lowest living leaves HL (m), crown length CL (m) and crown width CW (m), were measured in the summer from 2004 to 2008. The crown shape dynamics were analyzed. The results showed that the HL was significantly increased with increasing H, which suggests thatthe crown changed to be dumpy as the stands grew. However, the CL of young stands increased and then decreased continuously as the stands grew, while the CL of mature stands decreased from 2004 to 2007 and then increased in 2008. Meanwhile, the CL/CW ratio of young stands decreased as the stands grew, while the CL/CW ratio of mature stands decreased and then increased, which imply that dense Kandelia obovata trees might transform their crown shape for reducing of competition for light among trees. Therefore, these resultssuggested that the crown shape of dense mangrove treesare dynamics as developing stands.

The allometric relationships of mean tree height to mean organ mass w were studied in Bruguiera gymnorrhiza stands. According to Weller's allometric model, the self-thinning exponent α was estimated to be 1.11 in leaf, 1.55 in wood and 1.47 in aboveground. The self-thinning exponent α in leaf was not significantly different from 1.0, which showed that the stand leaf biomass was constant regardless of the population density ρ. The α was not significantly different from 3/2 in wood and aboveground, which concluded that the 3/2 power law of self-thinning holds in overcrowded B. gymnorrhiza stands.

The floristic composition, woody species diversity, and spatial distribution of trees in a subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest on Ishigaki Island, Japan, were investigated based on architectural stratification. Five architectural layers made up the forest stand. The floristic composition was almost similar between the third and the bottom layers, whereas it was almost exclusive between the top and the lower four layers. The fourth layer contained the highest potential number of species (90). Castanopsis sieboldii, Daphniphyllum teijmannii, Neolitsea aciculata, and Distylium racemosum were typical facultative shade species that appeared in all layers. Ardisia quinquegona was the most dominant species, as it had the highest importance value at the stand level; it was also considered a small climax species because of its disappearance in the top layer but higher importance value in the lower four layers. The values of Shannon’s index H’ and Pielou’s index J’ were 4.36 bit and 0.69, respectively, for the entire stand; these values tended to increase from the bottom layer upward, except for the H' -value of the top layer. Furthermore, woody species diversity was higher in the upper strata than the lower strata. The spatial distribution of trees was random in each layer, except in the bottom layer where trees were aggregately distributed. The degree of overlap in tree habitats differed among layers, and the results suggested that trees in the second layer could capture moderate light, while light could not easily penetrate the lower three layers. Therefore, most species in the lower layers must be shade-tolerant. The mean tree weight of each layer decreased from the top layer to the bottom layer, whereas the corresponding tree density increased. We concluded that this trend might be a general phenomenon in subtropical evergreen broadleaf forests of the Ryukyu Archipelago, and we designated this trend as the quasi mean tree weight-density trajectory of forest stratification. The relationship of mean tree height to tree density for the upper two layers supported Yamakura’s quasi -3/2 power law system.

Information on mangrove stand development is rare because long-term monitoring data is often lacking. Such information is important in order to plan management measures effectively. Novel approaches based on existing datasets are required to bridge this gap of knowledge. This study uses a unique combination of field data analyses with simulation experiments in order to demonstrate how information on mangrove dynamics can be extracted if data are sparse. The paper provides a baseline characterization of stand development in a monospecific pioneer mangrove stand of Kandelia obovata. Point pattern analyses revealed that in the young stage, self-thinning has started but has not yet lead to a regularity of spatial tree distribution in the entire stand, and trees located in smaller clumps hinder each other in growth but do not lead to a significant size class differentiation. However, after ca. 2 decades the self-thinning and the size class differentiation start to become more visible. A mutual inhibition of growth was observed within 2 m circular distance (r) in the young stage and within 3 m distance after two decades of stand development as confirmed by the negative values of mark correlation function. As a stand grows older the spatial pattern of individuals become more regular from a clustered pattern. In order to understand and predict the future stand development, simulation experiments were carried out by means of the individual-based model KiWi. © Author(s) 2013., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

In case of mangroves, little information is available on seasonal crown leaf area growth and leaf survival. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the dynamics of crown foliage to understand the productivity of mangroves. The present study describes the crown foliage dynamics of Bruguiera gymnorrhiza (L.) Lamk., Okinawa Island, Japan, which is the northern limit of its distribution. This study was carried out from April 2008 to March 2009. The crown foliage dynamics includes the leaf recruitment and survival. The production and fall of leaves were investigated by a direct observation of a sample tree of B. gymnorrhiza as well as by an indirect observation of litterfall measurement. The numbers of surviving and dying new leaves were totaled monthly. Newly flushed leaves occurred successively throughout the year, with a maximum in July and a minimum in January. The highest leaf death was in June, whereas the lowest was in December. The crown leaf area was almost stable throughout the year, having a peak in December. The homeostatic control of the crown foliage area may also be accompanied by the regulation of leaf recruitment and death. Therefore, the present results suggest the existence of integrated mechanisms between the internal and external factors maintain the crown foliage area

Background Progress of forest production in response to the environment requires a quantitative understanding of leaf area development. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the dynamics of seasonal crown foliage in order to understand the productivity of mangroves, which play an important role in the subtropical and tropical coastlines of the world. Method Crown foliage dynamics of the mangrove Rhizophora stylosa were studies to reveal patterns of leaf recruitment, survival and seasonal leaf area growth. Results Flushing of leaves occurred throughout the year, but both flushing and leaf area growth pattern of leaves varied with season. Maximum flushing occurred in summer, but leaf areas did not differ significantly with season. The half-expansion period is longer, and the intrinsic rate of increase was lower in winter. Summer flushed leaves grew faster at their initial stage and reached their maximum area over a shorter period of time. The difference in temperature and air vapor pressure deficit (VPD) between summer and winter contributed to the present dynamics of foliage patterns. The mean leaf longevity was estimated to be 13.1 month. The crown foliage area was almost stable throughout the year. Conclusions Homeostatic control of the crown foliage area may be accompanied by the existence of ecophysiological mechanisms in R. stylosa. Integrating crown foliage dynamics into forest models represents an important step towards incorporating physiological mechanisms into the models for predicting growth responses to environmental changes and for understanding the complex responses of tree growth and litter production.