Research Associate
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Gamboa
P. O. Box 0843-0392, Balboa
PANAMA
Email: engelbrb at si.edu
Research Interests
I am interested in the mechanisms underlying plant species distributions, and thus community composition, diversity, and ecosystem function. This is a central theme in ecology, and an extensive and very important body of work has been built up over the last century that tells us a tremendous amount about how plant distributions vary along environmental axes, and how plant population dynamics and physiological processes respond to environmental factors. However, the interface among these different levels remains poorly resolved. Studies integrating the different levels so far have usually focused on a few, non-representative species. We still have to determine what the relative importance of different environmental factors and physiological and morphological traits is for population dynamics and species distribution patterns across landscapes, and how that translates into community composition and biodiversity. In my work, I am using and developing various approaches to explicitly link physiology with population and community ecology to advance our understanding of which mechanisms are actually driving species distribution patterns. ecological success, for plant distribution and community composition? To evaluate the importance of functional traits for plant distribution, I compare them between tropical forests, and conduct experimental manipulations of environmental conditions to elucidate causal relationships. Plant functional traits I am considering, mostly concern drought resistance and carbon acquisition. Spanning the range from physiology to communities, my work extends from controlled laboratory experiments to manipulations in natural systems and includes a wide variety of techniques.
Current Research Projects
1. Drought and seedling survival of tropical forest plants: Linking mechanisms of drought resistance with species’ distributions
2. Linking drought resistance with species’ habitat associations
3. Phenotypic and genotypic plasticity of plant drought resistance
4. Landscape scale variation in soil hydraulic characteristics
5. Role of plant water relations and hydraulic conductance in nutrient limitation of mangroves
6. Studies on the phenology of flowering, fruiting, and leafing, and on the reproductive effort of coexisting Piper species
Recent Publications
Engelbrecht BMJ, Comita LS, Condit R, Kursar TA, Tyree MT, Turner BL, Hubbell SP. (2007) Drought sensitivity shapes species distribution patterns in tropical forests. Nature 447:80-82
Engelbrecht BMJ, Tyree MT, Kursar TA (2007) Visual wilting stages of seedlings as a proxy for drought survival and leaf water potentials. Journal of Tropical Ecology 23: 497 – 500
Arnold EA, Engelbrecht BMJ (2007) Fungal endophytes double minimum leaf conductance in leaves of a neotropical tree. Journal of Tropical Ecology 23: 369-372
Lovelock CE, Feller IC, Ball MC, Engelbrecht BMJ, Ewe ML (2006) Differences in plant function in phosphorus- and nitrogen-limited mangrove ecosystems. New Phytologist 172: 514-522
Svenning JC, Engelbrecht BMJ, Kinner DA, Kursar TA, Stallard RF, Wright SJ (2006) The relative roles of environment, history, and local dispersal in controlling the distributions of common tree and shrub species in a tropical forest landscape, Panama. Journal of Ecology 22: 575-586
Engelbrecht BMJ, Dalling JW, Wolf R, Pearson T, Galvez D, Koehler T, Tyree MT, Kursar TA (2006) Short dry spells in the wet season increase mortality of tropical pioneer seedlings. Oecologia 148: 258-269
Lovelock CE, Ball MC, Choat B, Engelbrecht BMJ, Holbrook NM, Feller IC (2006) Linking physiological processes with mangrove forest structure: Phosphorus deficiency limits canopy development, hydraulic conductivity and photosynthetic carbon gain in dwarf Rhizophora mangle. Plant, Cell and Environment 29: 793-802
Engelbrecht BMJ, Kursar TA, Tyree MT (2005) Drought effects on seedling survival in a tropical moist forest. Trees 19: 312-321
Engelbrecht, BMJ, Kursar TA (2003) Comparative drought resistance of seedlings of 28 woody species of co-occurring tropical woody plants. Oecologia 136: 383-393
Tyree MT, Engelbrecht BMJ, Vargas G, Kursar TA (2003) Desiccation tolerance of five tropical seedlings in Panama: Relationship to a field assessment of drought performance. Plant Physiology 132: 1439-1447
Updated -11/09/07
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