Biased-corrected richness estimates for the Amazonian tree flora
Hans ter Steege, Paulo Inácio Prado, Renato A. Ferreira de Lima, Edwin Pos, Luiz de Souza Coêlho, Diógenes de Andrade Lima Filho, Rafael P. Salomão, Iêda Leão do Amaral, Francisca Dionízia de Almeida Matos, Carolina V. Castilho, Oliver L. Phillips, Juan Ernesto Guevara, Marcelo de Jesus Veiga Carim, Dairon Cárdenas López, William E. Magnusson, Florian Wittmann, Maria Pires Martins, Daniel Sabatier, Mariana Victória Irume, José Renan da Silva Guimarães, Jean‐François Molino, Olaf Bánki, María Teresa Fernández Piedade, Nigel C. A. Pitman, José Ferreira Ramos, Abel Monteagudo Mendoza, Eduardo Martins Venticinque, Bruno Garcia Luize, Percy Núñez Vargas, Thiago Sanna Freire Silva, Evlyn Márcia Moraes de Leão Novo, Neidiane Farias Costa Reis, John Terborgh, Ângelo Gilberto Manzatto, Katia Regina Casula, Eurídice N. Honorio Coronado, Juan Carlos Montero, Alvaro Duque, Flávia R. C. Costa, Nicolás Castaño Arboleda, Jochen Schöngart, Charles Eugene Zartman, Timothy J. Killeen, Beatriz Schwantes Marimon, Ben Hur Marimon, Rodolfo Vásquez, Bonifacio Mostacedo, Layon Oreste Demarchi, Ted R. Feldpausch, Julien Engel, Pascal Petronelli, Christopher Baraloto, Rafael L. Assis, Hernán Castellanos, Marcelo Fragomeni Simon, Marcelo Brilhante de Medeiros, Adriano Costa Quaresma, Susan G. W. Laurance, Lorena M. Rincón, Ana Andrade, Thaiane R. Sousa, José Luís Camargo, Juliana Schietti, Susan G. W. Laurance, Helder Lima de Queiroz, Henrique Eduardo Mendonça Nascimento, Maria Aparecida Lopes, Emanuelle de Sousa Farias, José Leonardo Lima Magalhães, Roel Brienen, Gerardo A. Aymard C., Juan David Cardenas Revilla, Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira, Bruno Barçante Ladvocat Cintra, Pablo R. Stevenson, Yuri Oliveira Feitosa, Joost F. Duivenvoorden, Hugo F. Mogollón, Alejandro Araujo-Murakami, Leandro Valle Ferreira, José Rafael Lozada, James A. Comiskey, José Júlio de Toledo, Gabriel Damasco, Nállarett Dávila, Aline Lopes, Roosevelt García-Villacorta, Frederick C. Draper, Alberto Vicentini, Fernando Cornejo Valverde, Jon Lloyd, Vitor H. F. Gomes, David Neill, Alfonso Alonso, Francisco Dallmeier, Fernanda Coelho de Souza, Rogério Gribel, Luzmila Arroyo, Fernanda Antunes Carvalho, Daniel P. P. de Aguiar
Abstract
Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia is best approximated by a logseries with aggregated individuals, where aggregation increases with rarity. By averaging several methods to estimate total richness, we confirm that over 15,000 tree species are expected to occur in Amazonia. We also show that using ten times the number of plots would result in an increase to just ~50% of those 15,000 estimated species. To get a more complete sample of all tree species, rigorous field campaigns may be needed but the number of trees in Amazonia will remain an estimate for years to come.