The importance of epiphytes to total rainfall interception by a tropical montane rain forest in Costa Rica

The abundant epiphyte vegetation of upper montane tropical rain forests, which in terms of biomass is mainly composed of non-vascular plants (mosses, liverworts and lichens), can be expected to influence the magnitude of canopy water fluxes such as rainfall interception. The objects of this study were to: (i) estimate stand canopy water storage characteristics, (ii) determine rainfall interception by the canopy as a whole, and (iii) adapt an analytical model of rainfall interception, to enable the quantification of the contribution by non-vascular epiphytes to total interception. The studied old-growth forest in the Cordillera de Talamanca, Costa Rica, was 35 m tall, dominated by oaks, and little affected by fog. The estimated leaf area index of the 2 2, gave a tree leaf water storage capacity of trees was 7.7 m(2) m(2) which combined with results from a leaf wetting experiment. 1.08 mm at the stand level. The biomass of non-vascular epiphytes amounted to 1.9 t ha(-1) dry weight. Monthly moss water contents measured in situ ranged between 24 and 406% of moss dry weight, corresponding to a maximum moss water storage of 0.81 mm at stand level. Seasonal variation in moss water contents was reproduced satisfactorily by a running water balance model. A modified analytical interception model, which incorporated the moss water balance model, was applied. Weekly sums of observed throughfall, stemflow and interception measurements were available for comparison and amounted to 70, 2 and 28% of the associated 2150 mm of rain. The model predicted the observed values quite well and suggested that mosses contributed about 6% to the modelled interception total. Hence, the hydrological importance of epiphytes in the studied forest was rather limited despite their considerable maximum water storage capacity. This is thought to reflect the fact that under the prevailing rainfall conditions only a fraction of the potential storage is actually available. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.