Aim Water availability is the major driver of tropical forest structure and dynamics. Most research has focused on the impacts of climatic water availability, whereas remarkably little is known about the influence of water table depth and excess soil water on forest processes. Nevertheless, given that plants take up water from the soil, the impacts of climatic water supply on plants are likely to be modulated by soil water con...

Global change is impacting forests worldwide, threatening biodiversity and ecosystem services including climate regulation. Understanding how forests respond is critical to forest conservation and climate protection. This review describes an international network of 59 long‐term forest dynamics research sites ( CTFS ‐Forest GEO ) useful for characterizing forest responses to global change. Within very large plots (median size...