For example between a cloud forest and a Páramo ecosystem?
Yes. Since the tree line is usually found at high elevations (as well as cold environments), it is possible for there to be a tree line in tropical forests that also are near high mountains. For example, Mt Kilimanjaro has a tree line. Deserts may also have tree lines, representing the driest place where trees can grow :)
Upper tree line as a term is correct in the tropics and has been used. In a way upper tree lines occur at not that different average temperatures in the tropics than in many more northern ecosystems and some researchers suggest that the processes contributing to treeline formation are identical (see e.g. the book of Körner on alpine vegetation).
Hi Paula,
Just thought I'd pass on a link to a Körner article on RG that includes the tropics in a discussion of climatic treelines (in case you didn't have access to the book Frank mentions).
Cheers, John
Article Climatic treelines: Conventions, global patterns, causes
Dear Paula
Of course it is possible to use the term tree line (which is nevertheless differently understood by various authors and is not the same as tree species line or the upper line with a closed forest canopy), but in the alpine Zone of the tropics the Definition of the growth form tree is not a trivial one. Giant rosette plants with woody stems for instance are often not considered as trees even if they can reach a height of more than 2 m (often used as a rule of thumb to differentiate trees) but it is exactly this growth form that is characteristic for Tropical high mountains with an extreme Diurnal rhythm of temperature. daily (night-time) frost would not allow "real" woody trees to establish because their individual buds would die again and again. These giant rosette plants are represented due to the high degree of Isolation by many different Phyla around the tropics, but they hardly form closed stands with a canopy, but exist rather as individual specimen scattered in the landscape.
so it makes a difference if you consider this growth form or ecosystem as trees or forests (which they are not to my opinion).
best wishes
carl
For the distinction of tree line, timber line, Krummholz and other transitions/catena's between forest (to be defined) and herbaceous vegetation see attached. Also above temperate forest a large structural diversity of transitions occurs.
Article Pinus mugo Krummholz Dynamics During Concomitant Change in P...
Coming late to this discussion... in the case of the páramos, I suggest using "forest line" to set a boundary between high-Andean forest and páramos. I suggest not using "tree line" for that purpose, because the páramo contains numerous patches of trees (or even isolated trees). In fact, the three lines within the treeline ecotone of the Andean forest and páramo could be identified there: timber line, forest line and species tree line.
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