Supplemental information, code, and data for the MS: Defaunation impacts carbon storage in tropical forests.

<p># MS_Carbon<br> Supplemental information, code, and data for the MS: <br> Carolina Bello, Mauro Galetti, Marco A. Pizo, Luiz Fernando S. Magnago, Mariana Ferreira Rocha, Renato A. F. Lima, Carlos A. Peres, Otso Ovaskainen, and Pedro Jordano (2015). Defaunation impacts carbon storage in tropical forests.</p> <p> </p> <p>*Summary*:<br> Carbon storage is widely acknowledged as one of the most valuable forest ecosystem services. Deforestation, logging, fragmentation and climate change have significant impacts on tropical carbon stocks, however an elusive and yet undetected decrease in carbon storage may be due to defaunation of large seed dispersers. Many large tropical trees with sizeable contributions to carbon stock rely on large vertebrates for seed dispersal and regeneration, yet many of these frugivores are threatened by hunting, illegal trade and habitat loss. We used a large dataset on tree species composition and abundance, seed, fruit and carbon related traits, and plant-animal interactions to estimate the loss of carbon storage capacity of tropical forests in defaunated scenarios. By simulating the local extinction of trees that depend on large frugivores at 31 Atlantic Forest communities, we found that defaunation has the potential to significantly erode carbon storage even when only a small proportion (10%) of large-seeded trees are extirpated.</p> <p> </p