Abstract
1. Lianas—woody vines—are often abundant and strong competitors in tropical forests, shaping forest structure and diversity by affecting tree growth and mortality. Tropical cyclones damage trees and create canopy openings that favour lianas, but the combined effects of lianas and cyclones on tree dynamics remain largely unexplored.
2. Using long-term forest inventory data from Belize along with estimates of cyclone wind exposure, we assessed how cyclone disturbances influence liana prevalence (i.e. the proportion of liana-laden trees in a stand) and how cyclone–liana interactions modulate tree growth and mortality patterns.
3. Cyclone wind exposure reduced liana prevalence in the short term (5- and 10-year intervals) but increased it over a longer timeframe (20 years). Precipitation also strongly influenced liana prevalence, with drier conditions promoting tree infestation by lianas.
4. Lianas typically suppressed tree growth and increased mortality risk. However, increasing wind exposure diminished these effects, causing growth rates and mortality risk of liana-free and liana-laden trees to converge. Liana-free tree mortality risk rose more steeply, showing a trend towards higher mortality risk than liana-laden trees under high wind exposure, potentially due to the stabilising benefits of lianas and their association with cyclone-resistant tree species.
5. Synthesis. Our findings reveal a time-dependent influence of cyclones on liana prevalence and demonstrate that cyclones moderate liana effects on growth and mortality by favouring liana-prone, cyclone-resistant species while disproportionately impacting liana-free trees. These insights highlight the importance of considering cyclone disturbances when predicting liana-tree interactions and their impacts on forest dynamics and carbon storage in tropical forests.