Abstract
Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations 1–6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories 7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 728-734 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Nature |
Volume | 625 |
Issue number | 7996 |
Early online date | 10 Jan 2024 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 25 Jan 2024 |
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Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities. / Cooper, Declan L. M.; Lewis, Simon L.; Sullivan, Martin J. P. et al.
In: Nature, Vol. 625, No. 7996, 25.01.2024, p. 728-734.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
TY - JOUR
T1 - Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities
AU - Cooper, Declan L. M.
AU - Lewis, Simon L.
AU - Sullivan, Martin J. P.
AU - Prado, Paulo I.
AU - Ter Steege, Hans
AU - Barbier, Nicolas
AU - Slik, Ferry
AU - Sonké, Bonaventure
AU - Ewango, Corneille E. N.
AU - Adu-Bredu, Stephen
AU - Affum-Baffoe, Kofi
AU - de Aguiar, Daniel P. P.
AU - Ahuite Reategui, Manuel Augusto
AU - Aiba, Shin-Ichiro
AU - Albuquerque, Bianca Weiss
AU - de Almeida Matos, Francisca Dionízia
AU - Alonso, Alfonso
AU - Amani, Christian A.
AU - do Amaral, Dário Dantas
AU - do Amaral, Iêda Leão
AU - Andrade, Ana
AU - de Andrade Miranda, Ires Paula
AU - Angoboy, Ilondea B.
AU - Araujo-Murakami, Alejandro
AU - Arboleda, Nicolás Castaño
AU - Arroyo, Luzmila
AU - Ashton, Peter
AU - Aymard C., Gerardo A.
AU - Baider, Cláudia
AU - Baker, Timothy R.
AU - Balinga, Michael Philippe Bessike
AU - Balslev, Henrik
AU - Banin, Lindsay F.
AU - Bánki, Olaf S.
AU - Baraloto, Chris
AU - Barbosa, Edelcilio Marques
AU - Barbosa, Flávia Rodrigues
AU - Barlow, Jos
AU - Bastin, Jean-Francois
AU - Beeckman, Hans
AU - Begne, Serge
AU - Bengone, Natacha Nssi
AU - Berenguer, Erika
AU - Berry, Nicholas
AU - Bitariho, Robert
AU - Boeckx, Pascal
AU - Bogaert, Jan
AU - Bonyoma, Bernard
AU - Boundja, Patrick
AU - Bourland, Nils
AU - Boyemba Bosela, Faustin
AU - Brambach, Fabian
AU - Brienen, Roel
AU - Burslem, David F. R. P.
AU - Camargo, José Luís
AU - Campelo, Wegliane
AU - Cano, Angela
AU - Cárdenas, Sasha
AU - Cárdenas López, Dairon
AU - de Sá Carpanedo, Rainiellen
AU - Carrero Márquez, Yrma Andreina
AU - Carvalho, Fernanda Antunes
AU - Casas, Luisa Fernanda
AU - Castellanos, Hernán
AU - Castilho, Carolina V.
AU - Cerón, Carlos
AU - Chapman, Colin A.
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AU - Chhang, Phourin
AU - Chutipong, Wanlop
AU - Chuyong, George B.
AU - Cintra, Bruno Barçante Ladvocat
AU - Clark, Connie J.
AU - Coelho de Souza, Fernanda
AU - Comiskey, James A.
AU - Coomes, David A.
AU - Cornejo Valverde, Fernando
AU - Correa, Diego F.
AU - Costa, Flávia R. C.
AU - Costa, Janaina Barbosa Pedrosa
AU - Couteron, Pierre
AU - Culmsee, Heike
AU - Cuni-Sanchez, Aida
AU - Dallmeier, Francisco
AU - Damasco, Gabriel
AU - Dauby, Gilles
AU - Dávila, Nállarett
AU - Dávila Doza, Hilda Paulette
AU - de Alban, Jose Don T.
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AU - Prieto, Adriana
AU - Primack, Richard B.
AU - Priyadi, Hari
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AU - Rodrigues, Domingos de Jesus
AU - Rodriguez-Ronderos, M. Elizabeth
AU - Rovero, Francesco
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AU - Rudas, Agustín
AU - Rutishauser, Ervan
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AU - Sagang, Le Bienfaiteur
AU - Sampaio, Adeilza Felipe
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AU - Silva, Thiago Sanna Freire
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AU - Valderrama Sandoval, Elvis H.
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AU - Villarroel, Daniel
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AU - Vos, Vincent Antoine
AU - Vriesendorp, Corine
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AU - Wich, Serge
AU - Wittmann, Florian
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N1 - Data availability statement: The species abundance data that support the findings of this study are available from https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21670883 (formatting notes: a column for each species, rows for each plot, entries are the number of trees ≥10 cm diameter of each species in each plot). WorldClim69 bioclimatic data are available from https://www.worldclim.org/data/bioclim.html. Code availability statement: R code (version 4.3.1) to run the analyses and produce the figures and tables is available from https://github.com/declancooper/CommonSpecies2022.git.
PY - 2024/1/25
Y1 - 2024/1/25
N2 - Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations 1–6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories 7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees.
AB - Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations 1–6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories 7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85182928350&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41586-023-06820-z
DO - 10.1038/s41586-023-06820-z
M3 - Article
VL - 625
SP - 728
EP - 734
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
SN - 0028-0836
IS - 7996
ER -