Self-thinning of leaf, wood and aboveground in overcrowded mangrove Bruguiera gymnorrhiza stands in Okinawa Island, Japan

The allometric relationships of mean tree height to mean organ mass w were studied in Bruguiera gymnorrhiza stands. According to Weller's allometric model, the self-thinning exponent α was estimated to be 1.11 in leaf, 1.55 in wood and 1.47 in aboveground. The self-thinning exponent α in leaf was not significantly different from 1.0, which showed that the stand leaf biomass was constant regardless of the population density ρ. The α was not significantly different from 3/2 in wood and aboveground, which concluded that the 3/2 power law of self-thinning holds in overcrowded B. gymnorrhiza stands.