Thus, adult size is an important ec

Thus, adult size is an important ecological and silivicultural characteristic, both in its own right and as a correlate of other
traits that also influence growth and mortality. The trees of Pasoh show substantial differentiation in stature, though more species lie near the middle of the stature distribution than at the extremes (Fig. 2; Thomas, 2003). There is some evidence that shade tolerance declines, on average, with increasing adult stature (Thomas and Bazzaz, 1999; Davies et al., 1998; Poorter et al., 2003). However, the stature gradient seems mostly independent of the traditional gradient in shade tolerance, with species with contrasting mortality rates in shade occurring among all stature classes (Welden et al., 1991). The classification of species into functional groups is a standard procedure in modeling the growth and yield of diverse tropical forests (Vanclay, 1995). Our results support the use of adult size as one of the axes of this classification, possibly in combination with wood density or shade tolerance (Chave, 1999; King et al., 2005a). Knowledge of the demographic patterns of the less studied, small-statured species reported here should be of particular interest to conservation biologists.