Mapping density, diversity and species-richness of the Amazon tree flora
Hans ter Steege, Nigel C. A. Pitman, Iêda Leão do Amaral, Luiz de Souza Coêlho, Francisca Dionízia de Almeida Matos, Diógenes de Andrade Lima Filho, Rafael P. Salomão, Florian Wittmann, Carolina V. Castilho, Juan Ernesto Guevara, Marcelo de Jesus Veiga Carim, Oliver L. Phillips, William E. Magnusson, Daniel Sabatier, Juan David Cardenas Revilla, Jean‐François Molino, Mariana Victória Irume, Maria Pires Martins, José Renan da Silva Guimarães, José Ferreira Ramos, Olaf Bánki, María Teresa Fernández Piedade, Dairon Cárdenas López, Domingos de Jesus Rodrigues, Layon Oreste Demarchi, Jochen Schöngart, Everton José Almeida, Luciane Ferreira Barbosa, Larissa Cavalheiro, Márcia Cléia Vilela dos Santos, Bruno Garcia Luize, Evlyn Márcia Moraes de Leão Novo, Percy Núñez Vargas, Thiago Sanna Freire Silva, Eduardo Martins Venticinque, Ângelo Gilberto Manzatto, Neidiane Farias Costa Reis, John Terborgh, Katia Regina Casula, Eurídice N. Honorio Coronado, Abel Monteagudo Mendoza, Juan Carlos Montero, Flávia R. C. Costa, Ted R. Feldpausch, Adriano Costa Quaresma, Nicolás Castaño Arboleda, Charles E. Zartman, Timothy J. Killeen, Beatriz Schwantes Marimon, Ben Hur Marimon, Rodolfo Vásquez, Bonifacio Mostacedo, Rafael L. Assis, Christopher Baraloto, Dário Dantas do Amaral, Julien Engel, Pascal Pétronelli, Hernán Castellanos, Marcelo Brilhante de Medeiros, Marcelo Fragomeni Simon, Ana Andrade, José Luís Camargo, William F. Laurance, Susan G. W. Laurance, Lorena Maniguaje Rincón, Juliana Schietti, Thaiane R. Sousa, Emanuelle de Sousa Farias, Maria Aparecida Lopes, José Leonardo Lima Magalhães, Henrique Eduardo Mendonça Nascimento, Helder Lima de Queiroz, Gerardo A. Aymard C., Roel Brienen, Pablo R. Stevenson, Alejandro Araujo‐Murakami, Timothy R. Baker, Bruno Barçante Ladvocat Cintra, Yuri Oliveira Feitosa, Hugo F. Mogollón, Joost F. Duivenvoorden, Carlos A. Peres, Miles R. Silman, Leandro Valle Ferreira, José Rafael Lozada, James A. Comiskey, Frederick C. Draper, José Júlio de Toledo, Gabriel Damasco, Roosevelt García‐Villacorta, Aline Lopes, Alberto Vicentini, Fernando Cornejo Valverde, Alfonso Alonso, Luzmila Arroyo, Francisco Dallmeier, Vitor H. F. Gomes, E. Jiménez, David Neill, María Cristina Peñuela Mora
Abstract
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.