Tree seedling establishment in dry tropics: an urgent need of interaction studies Rahul Bhadouria 1 • Pratap Srivastava 1 • Rishikesh Singh 2 • Sachchidanand Tripathi 3 • Hema Singh 1 • A. S. Raghubanshi 2 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017 Abstract The current anthropogenic activities and climate change are increasingly becoming a growing global con- cern for dry tropical forests. Worldwide, these ecologically important forests have degraded considerably since the past few decades due to such factors. These factors have harmful consequences on the vegetation structure and diversity especially tree seedlings, which may further aggravate climate change. Generally, the vegetation recovery is very slow and unpredictable in the dry tropics due to complex interaction among tree seedling, site (par- ticularly, soil) and climatic conditions. We inculcated that a better understanding of the behavior of individuals of different tree species at seedling stage in dry forests is of immense importance. It is increasingly being recognized for explaining and managing the future composition of plant communities under changing environmental condi- tions. In this regard, the multi-factorial interaction studies under various resource–disturbance combinations are nee- ded in dry tropical ecosystems to understand the: (1) impact of relative variability in resources and disturbances on the responses of tree seedlings of native species and (2) how the later relates to distinct functional and life history traits of the individual tree species. Most importantly, such studies would improve our limited understanding of how variation (natural and man-made) in nutrient availability, under the influence of other local environmental factors (such as water, light, grass competition, herbivory, fire, allelopathy and enhanced CO 2 conditions), would affect the dynamics of dry tropical forest community. It may help in the proper management of these forests. Moreover, it may prove helpful in the current climate change scenario, as change in forest community dynamics may have con- sequences on soil C sequestration and CO 2 efflux at global scale. Keywords Climatic variability Á Disturbance Á Dry tropical ecosystems Á Growth regulators Á Herbivory Á Plant community Á Seedlings 1 Introduction Globally, tropical forest constitutes 52% of the total forest (Holdridge 1967; Murphy and Lugo 1986; Wilson 1988), in which about 42% are dry forests (Holdridge 1967). Dry tropical vegetation is mainly characterized by a mosaic of forests, secondary forests and savanna dominated by deciduous trees (Jha and Singh 1990) with marked sea- sonality in rainfall (Murphy and Lugo 1986; Miles et al. 2006; Pennington et al. 2009). Worldwide, dry tropical forests are found in countries such as Africa, Australia, Central and South America, India and Southeast Asia. These forests are known as the most exploited and endangered ecosystems of the world (Murphy and Lugo 1986; Miles et al. 2006; Vieira and Scariot 2006). According to some reports, dry tropical and subtropical forests and woodlands once covered more than half of the world’s tropics. However, a marked decrease is reported during the past few decades (Janzen 1988; Wilson 1988; & A. S. Raghubanshi asr.iesd.bhu@gmail.com 1 Ecosystems Analysis Laboratory, Department of Botany, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India 2 Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development (IESD), Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India 3 Department of Botany, Deen Dayal Upadhyay College, University of Delhi, Delhi 110017, India 123 Environ Syst Decis DOI 10.1007/s10669-017-9625-x