bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/664292; this version posted June 10, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 1 1 The mechanical stability of the world’s tallest broadleaf trees 2 T. Jackson1,2*, A. Shenkin1, N. Majalap3, J. bin Jami4, A. bin Sailim4, G. Reynolds4, D.A. Coomes2, C.J Chandler5, 3 D.S. Boyd5, A. Burt6, Phil Wilkes6,7, M. Disney6,7, Y. Malhi1 4 1 – Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK 5 2 – Forest ecology and conservation group, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, CB2 3EA, UK 6 3 – Phytochemistry Unit, Forest Research Centre, Jalan Sepilok, 90715 Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia 7 4 – South East Asia Rainforest Research Partnership (SEARRP), Danum Valley Field Centre, 91112 Lahad Datu, Sabah, Malaysia 8 5 – School of Geography, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK 9 6 – Department of Geography, University College London, WC1E 6BT, UK 10 7 – NERC National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO), Leicester, UK 11 12 *Corresponding author –
[email protected] 13 Abstract 14 The factors that limit the maximum height of trees, whether ecophysiological or mechanical, are the 15 subject of longstanding debate. Here we examine the role of mechanical stability in limiting tree 16 height and focus on trees from the tallest tropical forests on Earth, in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, 17 including the recently discovered tallest tropical tree, a 100.8 m Shorea faguetiana.