Why dont you start preparing one by one. Some basic informations like flowering periods and some ecological aspects might be present in the local floras.

Good question! I think many would like a comprehensive practical catalogue/compendium of data on trees – not only for potential reforestation projects but also for agroforestry studies. It would be extremely helpful to know which trees are compatible for given climatic conditions and soil types.

There’s the forestry compendium https://www.cabi.org/fc which is a start. It used to include a tree selection tool based on climate, which they developed with the Oxford Forestry Institute, but I think that has been discontinued.

You might also contact CIFOR and World Agroforestry Centre and other forestry centres.

To your list above I would add root characteristics – i.e. which species would be least likely to compete with companion plants, those most likely to exhibit hydraulic lift, drought resistance, etc. etc. e.g.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alexander-Roell/publication/331583409_Tree_species_and_size_influence_soil_water_partitioning_in_coffee_agroforestry/links/5c88112d299bf14e7e782298/Tree-species-and-size-influence-soil-water-partitioning-in-coffee-agroforestry.pdf

But if I were you, I would cold-call a few experts too, especially perhaps Roger Leakey https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Leakey-Rrb-2 - he’s immensely knowledgeable and very approachable.

There should be baseline studies for the forests under considerations. So consult previous studies in the study areas. Historical management using Landsat images could be implored... Soil seed bank studies of a year could help you in determining the regeneration potentials of species especially dominant Ones. Floristic composition and phonological approach using standard methods will also be relevant.

Firstly, you are going to need several sources of information, as the dominance of the species, redundancy, succession stages of the forests, and distribution features, I mean you will have to set up a robust based line of the patterns of the tropical forests. Secondly, Once you have accomplished this baseline information, you will have to know perfectly well the fauna distribution and behavior, as well as weather aspects of the region that you want to assess; it could be helpful to have a series of weather data on several scales and scopes and thirdly but non less critical, a social survey to get most of the local knowledge about the species from local communities. You cannot rule out the latter, it could be up to half of a successful job. I could call these tasks the first stage of the research. In the second stage, I would use multi-spectral time-series satellite images to broaden and gauge my observations. In fact, I am describing in a summary what we are doing in an extraordinary Amazonian region. We have already spent almost 10 years working on the matter to get our baseline.

This is a good question. In my opinion, it depends on plant species. For a certain species, you can address its characteristics of tree species at the level of population.

Pankaj Kumar Ozodbek Abduraimov

Thank you very much for your responses.

Peter Baker

Thank you so much for your very useful suggestions and links.

Tolulope Borisade Henry Arellano Peña Guangfu Zhang

Thank you very much for sharing your valuable ideas.

You search Google Scholar for those topics :)

Thanks for your suggestion Andrew Paul McKenzie Pegman !

This question and the answers highlights the need for a tree database with all this information, as Peter Baker pointed out. A search in Google Scholar and any other databases you have access to (Scopus, WoS etc.) by species or genus name would be a good start, plus you would need to search in other languages, since a lot is published in Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Chinese etc. There are search engines for some of these. However, a lot of this stuff is locked away in our individual heads where no search engine can find it.

R. T. Corlett

Thank you very much for your insightful response. I shall surely check the different databases and other literary sources. I'll also try to contact the concerned experts.

Regarding longevity, shade tolerance, resprouting age and resprouting probability, I recommend you to read Barthelemy and Caraglio (2007) and Charles-Dominique et al (2015).

The authors suggest that architectural traits (strong apical dominance, height of the 5th fork) help to disclose the species shade tolerance (open/close habitat). 5th fork is also a marker of maturity. Regarding longevity, resprouting age and resprouting probability, other traits, specifically delayed reiteration, are proposed in Barthelemy and Caraglio.

Barthélémy, D. and Caraglio, Y., 2007. Plant architecture: a dynamic, multilevel and comprehensive approach to plant form, structure and ontogeny. Annals of botany, 99(3), pp.375-407.

Charles-Dominique, T., Staver, C., Midgley, G.F., Bond, W.J., 2015. Functional differentiation of biomes in an African savanna/forest mosaic. South African Journal of Botany, 101, pp.82-90

Thank you so much, Artémis Anest !