Giants of the Amazon: How does environmental variation drive the diversity patterns of large trees?
Resource type
Journal article
Creator (person)
de Lima, Robson Borges
Görgens, Eric Bastos
da Silva, Diego Armando S.
de Oliveira, Cinthia Pereira
Batista, Anderson Pedro B.
Caraciolo Ferreira, Rinaldo L.
Costa, Flavia R. C.
Ferreira de Lima, Renato A.
da Silva Aparício, Perseu
de Abreu, Jadson Coelho
da Silva, José Antônio Aleixo
Guimaraes, Aretha Franklin
Fearnside, Philip M.
Sousa, Thaiane R.
Perdiz, Ricardo
Higuchi, Niro
Berenguer, Erika
Resende, Angélica F.
Elias, Fernando
de Castilho, Carolina Volkmer
de Medeiros, Marcelo Brilhante
de Matos Filho, João Ramos
Sardinha, Maurício Alves
Freitas, Márcio André Furtado
da Silva, José Jussian
da Cunha, Aldemir Pereira
Santos, Renan Mendes
Muelbert, Adriane Esquivel
Guedes, Marcelino Carneiro
Imbrózio, Reinaldo
de Sousa, Carla Samara Campelo
da Silva Aparício, Wegliane Campelo
da Silva e Silva, Breno Marques
Silva, Celice Alexandre
Marimon, Beatriz Schwantes
Junior, Ben Hur Marimon
Morandi, Paulo S.
Storck‐Tonon, Danielle
Vieira, Ima Célia Guimarães
Schietti, Juliana
Coelho, Fernanda
Alves de Almeida, Danilo R.
Castro, Wendeson
Carvalho, Samuel P. C.
da Silva, Robson dos Santos A.
Silveira, Juliana
Camargo, José Luís
Melgaço, Karina
de Freitas, Lucas Jose Mazzei
Vedovato, Laura
Benchimol, Maíra
de Oliveira de Almeida, Gabriel
Prance, Ghillean
da Silveira, Alan Bernardes
Simon, Marcelo Fragomeni
Garcia, Marcos Leandro
Silveira, Marcos
Vital, Marcos
Andrade, Maryane B. T.
Silva, Natalino
de Araújo, Raimunda Oliveira
Cavalheiro, Larissa
Carpanedo, Rainiellen
Fernandes, Letícia
Manzatto, Angelo Gilberto
de Andrade, Ricardo T. G.
Magnusson, William E.
Laurance, Bill
Nelson, Bruce Walker
Peres, Carlos
Daly, Douglas C.
Rodrigues, Domingos
Zopeletto, Ana Paula
de Oliveira, Edmar Almeida
Dugachard, Estelle
Barbosa, Flávia Rodrigues
Santana, Flavia
do Amaral, Iêda Leão
Ferreira, Leandro V.
Charão, Leandro S.
Ferreira, Joice
Barlow, Jos
Blanc, Lilian
Aragão, Luiz
Sist, Plinio
de Paiva Salomão, Rafael
da Silva, Antônio Sérgio Lima
Laurance, Susan
Feldpausch, Ted R.
Gardner, Toby
Santiago, Wagner
Balee, William
Laurance, William F.
Malhi, Yadvinder
Phillips, Oliver L.
da Silva Zanzini, Antônio Carlos
Rosa, Clarissa
Tadeu Oliveira, Wagner
Pereira Zanzini, Lucas
José Silva, Ricardo
Mangabeira Albernaz, Ana Luisa
Date published
September 2023
Abstract
For more than three decades, major efforts in sampling and analyzing tree diversity in South America have focused almost exclusively on trees with stems of at least 10 and 2.5 cm diameter, showing highest species diversity in the wetter western and northern Amazon forests. By contrast, little attention has been paid to patterns and drivers of diversity in the largest canopy and emergent trees, which is surprising given these have dominant ecological functions. Here, we use a machine learning approach to quantify the importance of environmental factors and apply it to generate spatial predictions of the species diversity of all trees (dbh ≥ 10 cm) and for very large trees (dbh ≥ 70 cm) using data from 243 forest plots (108,450 trees and 2832 species) distributed across different forest types and biogeographic regions of the Brazilian Amazon. The diversity of large trees and of all trees was significantly associated with three environmental factors, but in contrasting ways across regions and forest types. Environmental variables associated with disturbances, for example, the lightning flash rate and wind speed, as well as the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation, tend to govern the diversity of large trees. Upland rainforests in the Guiana Shield and Roraima regions had a high diversity of large trees. By contrast, variables associated with resources tend to govern tree diversity in general. Places such as the province of Imeri and the northern portion of the province of Madeira stand out for their high diversity of species in general. Climatic and topographic stability and functional adaptation mechanisms promote ideal conditions for species diversity. Finally, we mapped general patterns of tree species diversity in the Brazilian Amazon, which differ substantially depending on size class.
Project(s)
Priority 4: Accelerated Taxonomy
Funder
| Funder name | Awards |
Fundo Amazônia, Brazil | 14.2.0929.1 |
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Brazil | |
Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior | Process 403297/2016-8 - Process 301661/2019-7 - Process 550467/2010-6 - Process 301432/2022-8 |
Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, Brazil | Finance Code 001 |
Fundo Iratapuru, Brazil | |
Universidade do Estado do Amapá, Brazil | Processes 0022.0279.1202.0018/2021 |
Journal title
Global Change Biology
Volume
29
Issue
17
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Place of publication
UK
ISSN
1354-1013
eISSN
1365-2486
Date accepted
June 2, 2023
Official URL
Rights statement
In Copyright
Additional information
IF = 10.8 (2023)