Data collection was conducted from November 2013 to February 2014. We established
12 plots with a 50 m × 50 m quadrat (see Supplementary Fig. 2), with a total area of 3 ha. The survey area (3 ha) is sufficient to produce the species-area curve of this MDF17. Each large quadrat (50 m × 50 m, L-quadrat) was further divided into 25 sub-quadrats (S-quadrat) of 10 m × 10 m. All woody plants of 10 mm DBH (1.3 m above ground) in each plot were tagged and mapped to the nearest 10 m grid following a standard protoco l35. In the MDF, frequent wildfires kill many seedlings and saplings
that are less than 10 mm DBH during the dry season 36–38. Therefore, we assumed that only trees and saplings with ≥10 mm DBH can survive a forest fire. We divided the examined individuals into three size categories: (1) adult trees (DBH ≥ 45 mm), (2) large-size saplings (20 mm ≤ DBH < 45 mm) and (3) small-size saplings (10 mm ≤ DBH < 20 mm).