Abstract: Tree cavity is the key component of forest ecosystem, playing important roles in the conservation of animal diversity. To clarify the quantitative characteristics and distribution patterns of tree cavities in tropical forests, a ground-based observation was conducted in a 20 hm2 tropical forest dynamic monitoring plot in Xishuangbanna of Southwest China to survey the cavities on all the living trees with diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥5 cm. In the plot, 1725 trees belonging to 208 species, occupying 6.22% of the total, had tree cavities, and the m〖JP2〗ean density of the cavities was 108.4 cavities·hm-2. The number of the cavities per tree increased with DBH, and varied among tree species. The probability of the trees being cavity-bearing increased with increasing DBH, and differed significantly with tree species. As compared with the investigations on the tree cavities at other latitudes, our findings supported the inference proposed by Boyle et al. (2008), i.e., the forests at low latitudes would have a higher density of tree cavities.

Key words: landscape index, hemeroby, Ximen Island.