Exempel på liana

• Although a liana may simultaneously utilize several of these climbing mechanisms, it is normally possible to recognize the prevalent climbing mode.

• Nonetheless, small-diameter lianas were most abundant in the 20-y stands and the largest lianas were found in the forests 70 y old.

• These data suggest that small lianas may be abundant in the understorey but are not successful in reaching the canopy in older forests.

• Both crown illumination and tree size were related to liana abundance.

• This allows a well-replicated sampling on lianas per life form and species in a relatively uniform environment, a major limitation in highly diverse forests.

• Low forest was found to contain over four times the weight of liana leaves as high stature.

• In addition, 10 randomly selected leaves of each liana species were weighed and traced onto graph paper to determine leaf area-to-weight relationships.

• Understorey plants were not identified to species, but were categorized as herbs, ferns, herbaceous vines, palms, t rees and lianas.

• We sampled lianas in alternate 5-m x 10-m quadrats along each transect (total of eight quadrats/transect, 400 m2).

• If a liana species has positive population growth even in the absence of high-light understorey sites, it is truly shade-tolerant.

• Open circles and the dashed line represent individuals with light liana loads (0-25% of the crown infested).

• There are no published biomass estimates for liana forest per se, but they fall into the general category of non-dense forests.

• Total liana basal area, and thus estimated biomass, remained relatively constant over stand age.

• In addition, we evaluated the spatial distribution of lianas.

• The number of large trees (7.0 + 3.0) per subplot was not correlated with liana density or species richness.