Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-28-2015
Publication Title
Nature Communications
ISSN
2041-1723
Volume
6
Issue/No.
6857
First Page
1
Last Page
9
Abstract
While Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, the abundance of trees is skewed strongly towards relatively few ‘hyperdominant’ species. In addition to their diversity, Amazonian trees are a key component of the global carbon cycle, assimilating and storing more carbon than any other ecosystem on Earth. Here we ask, using a unique data set of 530 forest plots, if the functions of storing and producing woody carbon are concentrated in a small number of tree species, whether the most abundant species also dominate carbon cycling, and whether dominant species are characterized by specific functional traits. We find that dominance of forest function is even more concentrated in a few species than is dominance of tree abundance, with only ≈1% of Amazon tree species responsible for 50% of carbon storage and productivity. Although those species that contribute most to biomass and productivity are often abundant, species maximum size is also influential, while the identity and ranking of dominant species varies by function and by region.
Additional Comments
European Union's Seventh Framework Programme #s: 283080 'GEOCARBON', 282664 'AMAZALERT', ERC grant 'Tropical Forests in the Changing Earth System'; NERC Consortium grant #s: 'AMAZONICA' NE/F005806/1, 'TROBI' NE/D005590/1, 'Niche evolution of South American trees' NE/I028122/1; PRONEX—FAPEAM/CNPq grant #: 1600/2006); Universal/CNPq grant #: 473308/2009-6; Fitogeografia da Transicao Amazonia/Cerrado grant #s: CNPq 457602/2012-0, 403725/2012-7; French ANR grant #s: CEBA: ANR-10-LABX-0025, TULIP: ANR-10-LABX-0041; NERC project grant #s: ‘ECOFOR’ NE/K01644X/1, NE/I021160/1; EU FP7 project #: ‘ROBIN’ 283093; Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs grant #: KB-14-003-030
NSUWorks Citation
Sophie Fauset, Michelle O. Johnson, Manuel Gloor, Timothy R. Baker, Abel Monteagudo M., Roel J. W. Brienen, Ted R. Feldpausch, Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez, Yadvinder Malhi, Hans ter Steege, Nigel C. A. Pitman, Christopher Baraloto, Julien Engel, Pascal Petronelli, Ana Andrade, Jose Luis C. Camargo, Susan G. W. Laurance, William F. Laurance, Jerome Chave, Elodie Allie, Percy Nunez Vargas, John W. Terborgh, Kalle Ruokolainen, Marcos Silveira, Gerardo A. Aymard C., Luzmila Arroyo, Damien Bonal, Hirma Ramirez-Angulo, Alejandro Araujo-Murakami, David Neill, Bruno Herault, Aurelie Dourdain, Armando Torres-Lezama, Beatriz S. Marimon, Rafael P. Salomao, James A. Comiskey, Maxime Rejou-Mechain, Marisol Toledo, Juan Carlos Licona, Alfred Alarcon, Adriana Prieto, Agustin Rudas, Peter J. van der Meer, Timothy J. Killeen, Ben-Hur Marimon Jr., Lourens Poorter, Rene G. A. Boot, Basil Stergios, Emilio Vilanova Torre, Flavia R. C. Costa, Carolina Levis, Juliana Schietti, Priscila Souza, Nikee Groot, Eric Arets, Victor Chama Moscoso, Wendeson Castro, Euridice N. Honorio Coronado, Marielos Pena-Claros, Clement Stahl, Jorcely Barroso, Joey Talbot, Ima Celia Guimaraes Vieira, Geertje van der Heijden, Raquel Thomas, Vincent A. Vos, Everton C. Almeida, Esteban Alvarez Davila, Luiz E. O. C. Aragao, Terry L. Erwin, Paulo S. Morandi, Edmar Almeida de Oliveira, Marco B. X. Valadao, Roderick J. Zagt, Peter van der Hout, Patricia Alvarez Loayza, John J. Pipoly III, Ophelia Wang, Miguel Alexiades, Carlos E. Ceron, Isau Huamantupa-Chuquimaco, Anthony Di Fiore, Julie Peacock, Nadir C. Pallqui Camacho, Ricardo K. Umetsu, Plinio Barbosa de Camargo, Robyn J. Burnham, Rafael Herrera, Carlos A. Quesada, Juliana Stropp, Simone A. Vieira, Marc Steininger, Carlos Reynel Rodriguez, Zorayda Restrepo, Adriane Esquivel Muelbert, Simon L. Lewis, Georgia C. Pickavance, and Oliver L. Phillips. 2015. Hyperdominance in Amazonian Forest Carbon Cycling .Nature Communications , (6857) : 1 -9. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_facarticles/941.
ORCID ID
0000-0002-7977-9496
ResearcherID
C-6533-2012
DOI
10.1038/ncomms7857
Comments
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