We investigate the impact of disturbances on forest ecosystems by examining transient population dynamics in a controlled experiment carried out in a tropical rainforest. We first model the mean species abundance with a simple consumer-resource model, which is then extended into two multispecies frameworks for community dynamics: a neutral model, which emphasises the ability of any species to recover independently of the others; and a non-neutral one, where species interactions play an important role in reconstructing ecosystem's structure and patterns. The results indicate that, while both frameworks accurately describe correlation functions and mean-variance relations, the non-neutral model more effectively captures community structure as revealed by an evenness indicator. This suggests that interspecific interactions significantly influence the ecosystem's ability to respond to disturbances, providing deeper insights into the recovery dynamics of forest ecosystems.

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• Complex systems
• Plant ecology
• Disordered systems
• Stochastic dynamical systems