In tropical forests, trees often have damage in the form of visible cavities. However, the impacts of these cavities on tropical tree growth and survival are unknown, despite potential implications for the global carbon cycle. Here, we integrate 10 years of forest dynamics data with a survey of cavity presence on 25,450 rainforest trees (> 5 cm in diameter) in the 20 ha Xishuangbanna plot in southern China. We found that cavit...