These increases in stand density, while proportionally smaller than the biomass changes, run counter to expectation of declines if the plots were in an advanced state of secondary succession(e.g Coomes& Allen 2007), as do simultaneous increases in growth rates(see below) In Africa stand density changes have yet to be evaluated, but in both Africa and Amazonia there has been no shift in species composition towards more shade- tolerant taxa that would occur in a domain that was recovering from past disturbance events(eg. Lewis 2009a; Phillips et al. 2009).