O efeito da fragmentação florestal sobre a composição do banco de sementes na Amazônia central

Deforestation of tropical forests over the years contributed to the formation of fragmented landscapes, mainly surrounded by matrix of secondary forests, agriculture and pastures. This change in the landscape can generate several consequences for biodiversity maintenance, one way to understand the dynamics of vegetation and develop management strategies and conservation of these environments is through the analysis of the characteristics of the soil seed bank. The knowledge of the composition of the soil seed is important to understand the natural regeneration of vegetation, and the seed bank often acts initiating the succession process in disturbed areas. We evaluated how the density and floristic composition of the seed bank vary between forest fragments of different sizes (1, 10 e 100 ha), secondary forest areas and continuous primary forest, located in upland forest region in brazilian central Amazonia. We collected 225 samples of surface soil (15 cm x 15 cm x 3 cm), being 45 in each environment, it was subsequently monitor the emergence of seedlings for seven months in a greenhouse. There was a significant difference in the density of seedlings in the soil according to the environment (p < 0,001 Kruskal-Wallis), being recorded in 1690, 1309 and 576 seeds.m-² to forest fragments of 1, 10 and 100 ha, respectively. On the other side were also 2244 seeds.m-² registered for secondary forest and 662 seeds.m-² to primary forest. For all sites sampled the Melastomataceae family was the most abundant, with 60,4%, 49,0% and 64,2% of the individuals in the fragments of 1, 10 and 100 ha, respectively, 82,7% in secondary forest and 67,3% in primary forest. Overall, the seed bank was composed of 63,1% of trees, 33,6% of shrubs, 2,2% herbs and 1,1% of lianas. Recorded 46, 43 and 26 species in fragments of 1, 10 and 100 ha, respectively, 39 species in secondary forest and 28 species in primary forest. Fisher diversity index was higher in fragments (6,71, 8,64 e 9,38) when compared to secondary forest (3,92) and continuous primary forest (4,52). The biggest similarity between small fragments with secondary forest and larger fragments with primary forest,indicates a trend of change in species composition due to fragmentation effect, in the case that the study may be associated with edge effects.O desmatamento das florestas tropicais ao longo dos anos contribuiu para a formação de paisagens fragmentadas, cercadas principalmente por matrizes de florestas secundárias, agricultura e pastagens. Essa alteração na paisagem pode gerar diversas consequências para manutenção da biodiversidade, uma das formas para se compreender a dinâmica da vegetação e elaborar estratégias de manejo e conservação destes ambientes se dá através da análise das características do banco de sementes do solo. O conhecimento sobre a composição de sementes do solo é importante para entender o processo de regeneração natural da vegetação, sendo que o banco de sementes atua frequentemente dando início ao processo sucessional em áreas perturbadas. Neste estudo avaliamos como a densidade e a composição florística do banco de sementes variam entre fragmentos florestais de diferentes tamanhos (1, 10 e 100 ha), áreas de floresta secundária e floresta primária contínua, localizadas em região de floresta de terra firme na Amazônia Central brasileira. Foram coletadas 225 amostras de solo superficial (15 cm x 15 cm x 3cm) sendo 45 em cada ambiente, posteriormente foi realizado o monitoramento da emergência de plântulas por sete meses em casa de vegetação. Houve diferença significativa na densidade de plântulas emergidas no solo de acordo com o ambiente (p < 0,001 Kruskal-Wallis), sendo registradas 1690, 1309 e 576 sementes.m-² para fragmentos florestais de 1, 10 e 100 ha, respectivamente. Por outro lado, também foram registradas 2244 sementes.m-² para floresta secundária e 662 sementes.m-² para floresta primária. Para todos os locais amostrados a família Melastomataceae foi a mais abundante, com 60,4%, 49,0% e 64,2% do total de indivíduos nos fragmentos de 1, 10 e 100 ha, respectivamente, 82,7% na floresta secundária e 67,3% na floresta primária. No geral, o banco de sementes foi composto por 63,1% de árvores, 33,6% de arbustos, 2,2% de ervas e 1,1% de lianas. Foram registradas 46, 43 e 26 espécies nos fragmentos de 1, 10 e 100 ha, respectivamente, 39 espécies na floresta secundária e 28 espécies na floresta primária. O índice de diversidade de Fisher foi maior nos fragmentos (6,71, 8,64 e 9,38) quando comparados a floresta secundária (3,92) e floresta primária contínua (4,52). A maior semelhança entre fragmentos pequenos com a floresta secundária e fragmentos maiores com a floresta primária, indica uma tendência de mudança na composição de espécies devido ao efeito da fragmentação, que no caso do estudo pode estar associada aos efeitos de borda

Local hydrological conditions influence tree diversity and composition across the Amazon basin

Tree diversity and composition in Amazonia are known to be strongly determined by the water supplied by precipitation. Nevertheless, within the same climatic regime, water availability is modulated by local topography and soil characteristics (hereafter referred to as local hydrological conditions), varying from saturated and poorly drained to well-drained and potentially dry areas. While these conditions may be expected to influence species distribution, the impacts of local hydrological conditions on tree diversity and composition remain poorly understood at the whole Amazon basin scale. Using a dataset of 443 1-ha non-flooded forest plots distributed across the basin, we investigate how local hydrological conditions influence 1) tree alpha diversity, 2) the community-weighted wood density mean (CWM-wd) – a proxy for hydraulic resistance and 3) tree species composition. We find that the effect of local hydrological conditions on tree diversity depends on climate, being more evident in wetter forests, where diversity increases towards locations with well-drained soils. CWM-wd increased towards better drained soils in Southern and Western Amazonia. Tree species composition changed along local soil hydrological gradients in Central-Eastern, Western and Southern Amazonia, and those changes were correlated with changes in the mean wood density of plots. Our results suggest that local hydrological gradients filter species, influencing the diversity and composition of Amazonian forests. Overall, this study shows that the effect of local hydrological conditions is pervasive, extending over wide Amazonian regions, and reinforces the importance of accounting for local topography and hydrology to better understand the likely response and resilience of forests to increased frequency of extreme climate events and rising temperatures

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Geography and ecology shape the phylogenetic composition of Amazonian tree communities

Aim: Amazonia hosts more tree species from numerous evolutionary lineages, both young and ancient, than any other biogeographic region. Previous studies have shown that tree lineages colonized multiple edaphic environments and dispersed widely across Amazonia, leading to a hypothesis, which we test, that lineages should not be strongly associated with either geographic regions or edaphic forest types. Location: Amazonia. Taxon: Angiosperms (Magnoliids; Monocots; Eudicots). Methods: Data for the abundance of 5082 tree species in 1989 plots were combined with a mega-phylogeny. We applied evolutionary ordination to assess how phylogenetic composition varies across Amazonia. We used variation partitioning and Moran\u27s eigenvector maps (MEM) to test and quantify the separate and joint contributions of spatial and environmental variables to explain the phylogenetic composition of plots. We tested the indicator value of lineages for geographic regions and edaphic forest types and mapped associations onto the phylogeny. Results: In the terra firme and várzea forest types, the phylogenetic composition varies by geographic region, but the igapó and white-sand forest types retain a unique evolutionary signature regardless of region. Overall, we find that soil chemistry, climate and topography explain 24% of the variation in phylogenetic composition, with 79% of that variation being spatially structured (R$^{2}$ = 19% overall for combined spatial/environmental effects). The phylogenetic composition also shows substantial spatial patterns not related to the environmental variables we quantified (R$^{2}$ = 28%). A greater number of lineages were significant indicators of geographic regions than forest types. Main Conclusion: Numerous tree lineages, including some ancient ones (>66 Ma), show strong associations with geographic regions and edaphic forest types of Amazonia. This shows that specialization in specific edaphic environments has played a long-standing role in the evolutionary assembly of Amazonian forests. Furthermore, many lineages, even those that have dispersed across Amazonia, dominate within a specific region, likely because of phylogenetically conserved niches for environmental conditions that are prevalent within regions

Geographic patterns of tree dispersal modes in Amazonia and their ecological correlates

Aim: To investigate the geographic patterns and ecological correlates in the geographic distribution of the most common tree dispersal modes in Amazonia (endozoochory, synzoochory, anemochory and hydrochory). We examined if the proportional abundance of these dispersal modes could be explained by the availability of dispersal agents (disperser-availability hypothesis) and/or the availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits (resource-availability hypothesis). Time period: Tree-inventory plots established between 1934 and 2019. Major taxa studied: Trees with a diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥ 9.55 cm. Location: Amazonia, here defined as the lowland rain forests of the Amazon River basin and the Guiana Shield. Methods: We assigned dispersal modes to a total of 5433 species and morphospecies within 1877 tree-inventory plots across terra-firme, seasonally flooded, and permanently flooded forests. We investigated geographic patterns in the proportional abundance of dispersal modes. We performed an abundance-weighted mean pairwise distance (MPD) test and fit generalized linear models (GLMs) to explain the geographic distribution of dispersal modes. Results: Anemochory was significantly, positively associated with mean annual wind speed, and hydrochory was significantly higher in flooded forests. Dispersal modes did not consistently show significant associations with the availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits. A lower dissimilarity in dispersal modes, resulting from a higher dominance of endozoochory, occurred in terra-firme forests (excluding podzols) compared to flooded forests. Main conclusions: The disperser-availability hypothesis was well supported for abiotic dispersal modes (anemochory and hydrochory). The availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits seems an unlikely explanation for the distribution of dispersal modes in Amazonia. The association between frugivores and the proportional abundance of zoochory requires further research, as tree recruitment not only depends on dispersal vectors but also on conditions that favour or limit seedling recruitment across forest types

Mapping density, diversity and species-richness of the Amazon tree flora

Using 2.046 botanically-inventoried tree plots across the largest tropical forest on Earth, we mapped tree species-diversity and tree species-richness at 0.1-degree resolution, and investigated drivers for diversity and richness. Using only location, stratified by forest type, as predictor, our spatial model, to the best of our knowledge, provides the most accurate map of tree diversity in Amazonia to date, explaining approximately 70% of the tree diversity and species-richness. Large soil-forest combinations determine a significant percentage of the variation in tree species-richness and tree alpha-diversity in Amazonian forest-plots. We suggest that the size and fragmentation of these systems drive their large-scale diversity patterns and hence local diversity. A model not using location but cumulative water deficit, tree density, and temperature seasonality explains 47% of the tree species-richness in the terra-firme forest in Amazonia. Over large areas across Amazonia, residuals of this relationship are small and poorly spatially structured, suggesting that much of the residual variation may be local. The Guyana Shield area has consistently negative residuals, showing that this area has lower tree species-richness than expected by our models. We provide extensive plot meta-data, including tree density, tree alpha-diversity and tree species-richness results and gridded maps at 0.1-degree resolution

Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities

Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations1,2,3,4,5,6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Long-term thermal sensitivity of Earth’s tropical forests

The sensitivity of tropical forest carbon to climate is a key uncertainty in predicting global climate change. Although short-term drying and warming are known to affect forests, it is unknown if such effects translate into long-term responses. Here, we analyze 590 permanent plots measured across the tropics to derive the equilibrium climate controls on forest carbon. Maximum temperature is the most important predictor of aboveground biomass (−9.1 megagrams of carbon per hectare per degree Celsius), primarily by reducing woody productivity, and has a greater impact per °C in the hottest forests (>32.2°C). Our results nevertheless reveal greater thermal resilience than observations of short-term variation imply. To realize the long-term climate adaptation potential of tropical forests requires both protecting them and stabilizing Earth’s climate

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost