Soil and light effects on the sapling performance of the shade-tolerant speciesBrosimum alicastrum(Moraceae) in a Mexican tropical rain forest

Many studies conclude that light is the most important resource that determines plant performance of tree saplings in tropical rain forests, and implicitly suggest that soil resources are less important. To provide a quantitative test for soil versus light effects on sapling performance, we studied how saplings of the shade-tolerant tree speciesBrosimum alicastrumresponded to contrasting levels of light availability and soil fertility in a Mexican tropical rain forest. Therefore saplings were selected from ten low-light exposure (crown position index