Abstract Lianas, woody climbing plants, are increasing in many tropical forests, with cascading effects such as decreased forest productivity, carbon sequestration, and resilience. Possible causes are increasing forest fragmentation, CO2 fertilization, and drought. Determining the primary changing species and their underlying vital rates help explain the liana trends. We monitored over 17,000 liana stems for 13 yr in 20 ha of old‐growth forest in the Congo Basin, and here we report changes and vital rates for the community and for the 87 most abundant species. The total liana abundance declined from 15,007 lianas in 1994 to 11,090 in 2001 to 9,978 in 2007. Over half (52%) of the evaluated species have significantly declining populations, showing that the community response is not the result of changes in a few dominant species only. Species density change (i.e., the change in number of individuals per hectare) decreased with mortality rate, tended to increase with recruitment rate, but was independent of growth rate. Species change was independent of functional characteristics important for plant responses to fragmentation, CO2, and drought, such as lifetime light requirements, climbing and dispersal mechanism, and leaf size. These results indicate that in Congo lianas do not show the reputed global liana increase, but rather a decline, and that elements of the reputed drivers underlying global liana change do not apply to this DR Congo forest. We suggest warfare in the Congo Basin to have decimated the elephant population, leading to less disturbance, forest closure, and declining liana numbers. Our results imply that, in this tropical forest, local causes (i.e., disturbance) override more global causes of liana change resulting in liana decline, which sharply contrasts with the liana increase observed elsewhere.

中文翻译：

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刚果盆地的藤本植物物种减少与全球模式形成鲜明对比

摘要 藤本植物是木本攀援植物，在许多热带森林中不断增加，具有森林生产力下降、碳固存和恢复力等连锁效应。可能的原因是森林日益破碎化、二氧化碳施肥和干旱。确定主要变化的物种及其潜在的生命率有助于解释藤本植物的趋势。我们对刚果盆地 20 公顷原始森林中的 17,000 多株藤本植物茎进行了 13 年的监测，在这里我们报告了社区和 87 个最丰富物种的变化和生命率。藤本植物总丰度从 1994 年的 15,007 株下降到 2001 年的 11,090 株，再到 2007 年的 9,978 株。超过一半（52%）的评估物种数量显着下降，表明群落反应不是少数优势物种变化的结果只要。物种密度变化（即每公顷个体数量的变化）随着死亡率的下降而下降，随着招募率的增加而增加，但与增长率无关。物种变化与植物对破碎、二氧化碳和干旱的反应重要的功能特征无关，例如终生光需求、攀爬和传播机制以及叶片大小。这些结果表明，刚果藤本植物并没有表现出众所周知的全球藤本植物增加，而是下降，而且全球藤本植物变化背后的知名驱动因素并不适用于这片刚果民主共和国森林。我们建议刚果盆地的战争使大象数量大量减少，从而减少干扰、森林关闭和藤本植物数量下降。我们的结果意味着，在这片热带森林中，局部原因（即，