Lightning‐caused disturbance frequency and severity varies with topography in an Afromontane forest
Evan M. Gora·Martin J. P. Sullivan·Rodrigue Batumike·Bianca Zoletto·Drew Bantlin·Nikolaos Petridis·Alain Senghor K. Ngute·Aida Cuni‐Sanchez·Douglas Sheil·Robert Bitariho·Gerard Imani·Beth A. Kaplin
Abstract Lightning is an important agent of tropical tree mortality, but field data on lightning‐caused disturbances is largely restricted to one lowland tropical forest in Panama. Here we quantified variation in the frequency and severity of visually detectable lightning‐caused disturbances across topography in the montane forests of Nyungwe National Park, Rwanda. This was the first systematic assessment of lightning‐caused disturbance in any African tropical forest and a preliminary exploratio