The Luquillo Forest Dynamics Plot (LFDP) is a 16-ha long-term study plot in subtropical wet forest in the Luquillo Mountains of Puerto Rico. It is part of the Luquillo LTER and the Center for Tropical Science (CTFS) network of large tropical forest plots. Forests are often subject to multiple, compounded disturbances, representing both natural and human-induced processes. Our goal is to understand forest structure, diversity and dynamics, and to predict long-term changes resulting from interactions of past human land use and intermittent hurricane damage. To do this requires that we understand how species-specific characteristics, such as their response to human disturbances, susceptibility to hurricane damage, and seedling dynamics after a hurricane, influence the community population dynamics. Our recent studies using a new version of the SORTIE model (an individually based, spatially explicit forest simulator) challenge conceptual views of successional vegetation dynamics by showing that, over 200 years mature forest species will not replace the secondary species currently common in the human-disturbed areas of the LFDP. Instead, SORTIE simulations suggest that under the current average historical frequency of severe hurricanes, mature and secondary species will become common throughout the plot and a new type of forest composition will emerge, different from that found in the LFDP today.