TY - JOUR
T1 - Evolutionary diversity is associated with wood productivity in Amazonian forests
AU - Coelho de Souza, Fernanda
AU - Dexter, Kyle G.
AU - Phillips, Oliver L.
AU - Pennington, R. Toby
AU - Neves, Danilo
AU - Sullivan, Martin J.P.
AU - Alvarez-Davila, Esteban
AU - Alves, Átila
AU - Amaral, Ieda
AU - Andrade, Ana
AU - Aragao, Luis E.O.C.
AU - Araujo-Murakami, Alejandro
AU - Arets, Eric J.M.M.
AU - Arroyo, Luzmilla
AU - Aymard C, Gerardo A.
AU - Bánki, Olaf
AU - Baraloto, Christopher
AU - Barroso, Jorcely G.
AU - Boot, Rene G.A.
AU - Brienen, Roel J.W.
AU - Brown, Foster
AU - Camargo, José Luís C.
AU - Castro, Wendeson
AU - Chave, Jerome
AU - Cogollo, Alvaro
AU - Comiskey, James A.
AU - Cornejo-Valverde, Fernando
AU - da Costa, Antonio Lola
AU - de Camargo, Plínio B.
AU - Di Fiore, Anthony
AU - Feldpausch, Ted R.
AU - Galbraith, David R.
AU - Gloor, Emanuel
AU - Goodman, Rosa C.
AU - Gilpin, Martin
AU - Herrera, Rafael
AU - Higuchi, Niro
AU - Honorio Coronado, Eurídice N.
AU - Jimenez-Rojas, Eliana
AU - Killeen, Timothy J.
AU - Laurance, Susan
AU - Laurance, William F.
AU - Lopez-Gonzalez, Gabriela
AU - Lovejoy, Thomas E.
AU - Malhi, Yadvinder
AU - Marimon, Beatriz S.
AU - Marimon-Junior, Ben Hur
AU - Mendoza, Casimiro
AU - Monteagudo-Mendoza, Abel
AU - Neill, David A.
N1 - Funding Information:
This paper is a product of the project ‘Niche Evolution of South American Trees’ (funded by NERC; NE/I028122/1), RAINFOR (the Amazon Forest Inventory Network) and ForestPlots.net (www.ForestPlots.net). Phylogenetic data were generated by the Niche Evolution of South American Trees project; forest inventory data were generated by the RAINFOR network and curated by ForestPlots.net. RAINFOR and ForestPlots. net have been supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme projects 283080 (GEOCARBON) and 282664 (AMAZALERT), ERC grant ‘Tropical Forests in the Changing Earth System’, Natural Environment Research Council Urgency, Consortium and Standard grants ‘AMAZONICA’ (NE/F005806/1), ‘TROBIT’ (NE/D005590/1) and ‘Niche Evolution of South American Trees’ (NE/I028122/1), and ‘BIO-RED’ (NE/N012542/1). F.C.d.S. was supported by a PhD scholarship from the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Brazil; 117913-6). K.G.D. was supported by a Leverhulme International Academic Fellowship. O.L.P. was supported by an ERC Advanced Grant and is a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holder. R.T.B. acknowledges support from a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship (RF-2015-653). This paper is 772 in the Technical Series of the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP-INPA/STRI).
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - Higher levels of taxonomic and evolutionary diversity are expected to maximize ecosystem function, yet their relative importance in driving variation in ecosystem function at large scales in diverse forests is unknown. Using 90 inventory plots across intact, lowland, terra firme, Amazonian forests and a new phylogeny including 526 angiosperm genera, we investigated the association between taxonomic and evolutionary metrics of diversity and two key measures of ecosystem function: aboveground wood productivity and biomass storage. While taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity were not important predictors of variation in biomass, both emerged as independent predictors of wood productivity. Amazon forests that contain greater evolutionary diversity and a higher proportion of rare species have higher productivity. While climatic and edaphic variables are together the strongest predictors of productivity, our results show that the evolutionary diversity of tree species in diverse forest stands also influences productivity. As our models accounted for wood density and tree size, they also suggest that additional, unstudied, evolutionarily correlated traits have significant effects on ecosystem function in tropical forests. Overall, our pan-Amazonian analysis shows that greater phylogenetic diversity translates into higher levels of ecosystem function: tropical forest communities with more distantly related taxa have greater wood productivity.
AB - Higher levels of taxonomic and evolutionary diversity are expected to maximize ecosystem function, yet their relative importance in driving variation in ecosystem function at large scales in diverse forests is unknown. Using 90 inventory plots across intact, lowland, terra firme, Amazonian forests and a new phylogeny including 526 angiosperm genera, we investigated the association between taxonomic and evolutionary metrics of diversity and two key measures of ecosystem function: aboveground wood productivity and biomass storage. While taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity were not important predictors of variation in biomass, both emerged as independent predictors of wood productivity. Amazon forests that contain greater evolutionary diversity and a higher proportion of rare species have higher productivity. While climatic and edaphic variables are together the strongest predictors of productivity, our results show that the evolutionary diversity of tree species in diverse forest stands also influences productivity. As our models accounted for wood density and tree size, they also suggest that additional, unstudied, evolutionarily correlated traits have significant effects on ecosystem function in tropical forests. Overall, our pan-Amazonian analysis shows that greater phylogenetic diversity translates into higher levels of ecosystem function: tropical forest communities with more distantly related taxa have greater wood productivity.
U2 - 10.1038/s41559-019-1007-y
DO - 10.1038/s41559-019-1007-y
M3 - Article
C2 - 31712699
AN - SCOPUS:85075156118
SN - 2397-334X
VL - 3
SP - 1754
EP - 1761
JO - Nature Ecology and Evolution
JF - Nature Ecology and Evolution
IS - 12
ER -