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Tropical forests play a main role in the global carbon cycle due to their higher exchange capacity of carbon dioxide with the atmosphere than any other forest type on the Earth. In this study, we aimed to explore the relative importance of foremost species and topmost trees in shaping forest structure, diversity and biomass in natural tropical forests. We hypothesized that topmost trees promote but foremost species decline tropical forest structure, diversity and biomass in a changing environment (i.e. the ‘tree overtopping hypothesis’). We formulated three questions to address the proposed hypothesis: (1) Are forest structure, diversity and biomass affected by both foremost species and topmost trees, and what is the magnitude and direction of each relative effect? (2) Are foremost species and topmost trees influenced similarly by multiple environmental factors? (3) How do foremost species and topmost trees mediate the …