Abstract
Lightning is a common disturbance that generates large amounts of deadwood in many tropical forests. However, patterns of consumer colonization andsuccession following a lightning strike are unknown. By tracking strikes throughtime, we found that beetle activity and fungal fruiting bodies were more likelyto be observed in lightning-damaged forest. Additionally, we found that strikessupported distinct beetle assemblages compared with undamaged forest. Otherorganisms such as carton-building ants and termites exhibited some tolerance tolightning disturbance. These results suggest that lightning is an important distur-bance for organisms that rely on localized patches of dead wood
