Canopy functional trait variation across Earth’s tropical forests
Jesús Aguirre‐Gutiérrez, Sami W. Rifai, Xiongjie Deng, Hans ter Steege, Eleanor R. Thomson, José Javier Corral‐Rivas, Aretha Franklin Guimarães, Sandra Cristina Müller, Joice Klipel, Sophie Fauset, Angélica Faria de Resende, Göran Wallin, Carlos Alfredo Joly, Katharine Abernethy, Stephen Adu‐Bredu, Celice Alexandre Silva, Edmar Almeida de Oliveira, Danilo Roberti Alves de Almeida, Esteban Álvarez‐Dávila, Gregory P. Asner, Timothy R. Baker, Maíra Benchimol, Lisa Patrick Bentley, Érika Berenguer, Lilian Blanc, Damien Bonal, Kauane Maiara Bordin, Róbson Borges de Lima, Sabine Both, Jaime Cabezas Duarte, Domingos Cardoso, Haroldo C. de Lima, Larissa Cavalheiro, Lucas A. Cernusak, Nayane Cristina Candida dos Santos Prestes, Antônio Carlos da Silva Zanzini, Ricardo José da Silva, Robson Dos Santos Alves da Silva, Mariana de Andrade Iguatemy, Tony César de Sousa Oliveira, Benjamin Dechant, Géraldine Derroire, Kyle G. Dexter, Domingos de Jesus Rodrigues, Mário M. Espírito‐Santo, Letícia Fernandes da Silva, Tomas F. Domingues, Joice Ferreira, Marcelo Fragomeni Simon, Cécile A. J. Girardin, Bruno Hérault, Kathryn J. Jeffery, K. A. Sreejith, Arunkumar Kavidapadinjattathil Sivadasan, Bente Klitgaard, William F. Laurance, Maurício Lima Dan, William E. Magnusson, Eduardo Malta Campos‐Filho, Rubens Manoel dos Santos, Ângelo Gilberto Manzatto, Marcos Silveira, Ben Hur Marimon, Roberta E. Martin, Daniel Luís Mascia Vieira, Thiago Metzker, William Milliken, Peter W. Moonlight, Marina Maria Moraes de Seixas, Paulo S. Morandi, Robert Muscarella, María Guadalupe Nava‐Miranda, Brigitte Nyirambangutse, Jhonathan O. Silva, Imma Oliveras Menor, Pablo José Francisco Pena Rodrigues, Cinthia Pereira de Oliveira, Lucas Pereira Zanzini, Carlos A. Peres, Vignesh Punjayil, Carlos A. Quesada, Maxime Réjou‐Méchain, Terhi Riutta, Gonzalo Rivas‐Torres, Clarissa Rosa, Norma Salinas, Rodrigo Scarton Bergamin, Beatriz Schwantes Marimon, Alexander Shenkin, Priscyla Maria Silva Rodrigues, Axa Emanuelle Simões Figueiredo, Queila Souza Garcia, Tereza Cristina Souza Spósito, Danielle Storck‐Tonon, Martin J. P. Sullivan, Martin Svátek, Wagner Tadeu Vieira Santiago, Yit Arn Teh, Prasad Theruvil Parambil Sivan, Marcelo Trindade Nascimento
Abstract
Abstract Tropical forest canopies are the biosphere’s most concentrated atmospheric interface for carbon, water and energy 1,2 . However, in most Earth System Models, the diverse and heterogeneous tropical forest biome is represented as a largely uniform ecosystem with either a singular or a small number of fixed canopy ecophysiological properties 3 . This situation arises, in part, from a lack of understanding about how and why the functional properties of tropical forest canopies vary geographically 4 . Here, by combining field-collected data from more than 1,800 vegetation plots and tree traits with satellite remote-sensing, terrain, climate and soil data, we predict variation across 13 morphological, structural and chemical functional traits of trees, and use this to compute and map the functional diversity of tropical forests. Our findings reveal that the tropical Americas, Africa and Asia tend to occupy different portions of the total functional trait space available across tropical forests. Tropical American forests are predicted to have 40% greater functional richness than tropical African and Asian forests. Meanwhile, African forests have the highest functional divergence—32% and 7% higher than that of tropical American and Asian forests, respectively. An uncertainty analysis highlights priority regions for further data collection, which would refine and improve these maps. Our predictions represent a ground-based and remotely enabled global analysis of how and why the functional traits of tropical forest canopies vary across space.