Forest damage and recovery resulting from 2015 typhoons in Lanyu island

Lanyu is a small island located off southeastern Taiwan which experiences more frequent and intense typhoons than does Taiwan. Six surveys were conducted between 2015 and 2016 to study damages and recovery in natural and managed forests in response to three typhoons. The results indicate that the greatest canopy damage was not associated with the typhoon having the highest wind speed, suggesting that wind speed alone is not a good predictor of typhoon damage. Typhooninduced tree mortality was less than 1%, and the gap fraction returned to the level before typhoon Soudelor in less than seven months, which highlights high resistance and resilience of the forests of Lanyu in response to typhoon disturbance and supports the hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between typhoon frequency and ecosystem resistance and resilience.