Bertalanffy-Pütter Models for the Growth of Tropical Trees and Stands

The Bertalanffy-Pütter (BP) five-parameter growth model provides a versatile framework for the modeling of growth. Using data from a growth experiment in literature about the average size-at-age of 24 species of tropical trees over ten years in the same area, we identified their best-fit BP-model parameters. While different species had different best-fit exponent-pairs, there was a model with a good fit to 21 (87.5%) of the data (“Good fit” means a normalized root-mean-squared-error NRMSE below 2.5%. This threshold was the 95% quantile of the lognormal distribution that was fitted to the NRMSE values for the best-fit models for the data). In view of the sigmoidal character of this model despite the early stand we discuss whether the setting of the growth experiment may have impeded growth.