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To evaluate how wood density relates to tree growth rates in simple models and two tropical forests.

Barro Colorado Island, Panama; and Pasoh Forest Reserve, Malaysia.

1986–2010.

Trees.

We derived expected relationships of wood density with diameter growth at a given diameter under a null hypothesis that aboveground biomass growth is independent of wood density, and an alternative hypothesis that biomass growth scales with crown area, which itself increases with wood density. We tested these assumptions and predictions through analyses of interspecific relationships of wood density with height, crown area and diameter growth at constant diameter in two tropical forests.

Height was unrelated to wood density, whereas crown areas showed a slightly positive relationship to wood density. Thus, the expected exponent of diameter …