TY - JOUR
T1 - Dominant tree species drive beta diversity patterns in western Amazonia
AU - Draper, Frederick C.
AU - Asner, Gregory P.
AU - Honorio Coronado, Eurídice N.
AU - Baker, Timothy R.
AU - García-Villacorta, Roosevelt
AU - Pitman, Nigel C.A.
AU - Fine, Paul V.A.
AU - Phillips, Oliver L.
AU - Zárate Gómez, Ricardo
AU - Amasifuén Guerra, Carlos A.
AU - Flores Arévalo, Manuel
AU - Vásquez Martínez, Rodolfo
AU - Brienen, Roel J.W.
AU - Monteagudo-Mendoza, Abel
AU - Torres Montenegro, Luis A.
AU - Valderrama Sandoval, Elvis
AU - Roucoux, Katherine H.
AU - Ramírez Arévalo, Fredy R.
AU - Mesones Acuy, Ítalo
AU - Del Aguila Pasquel, Jhon
AU - Tagle Casapia, Ximena
AU - Flores Llampazo, Gerardo
AU - Corrales Medina, Massiel
AU - Reyna Huaymacari, José
AU - Baraloto, Christopher
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported through a joint project between the Carnegie Institution for Science and the International Center for Tropical Botany at Florida International University. G.P.A. and F.C.D. were supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Leonardo DiCa-prio Foundation. Plot installations, fieldwork, and botanical identification by the authors and colleagues were supported by several grants, including a NERC Ph.D. studentship to F.C.D. (NE/J50001X/1), an “Investissement d’avenir” grant from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (CEBA, ref. ANR-10-LABX-25-01), a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant to the Amazon Forest Inventory Network (RAINFOR), the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (283080, “GEO-CARBON”), and NERC Grants to O.L.P. (Grants NER/A/S/ 2000/0053, NE/B503384/1, NE/F005806/1, and a NERC Postdoctoral Fellowship), and a National Geographic Society for supporting forest dynamics research in Amazonian Peru (Grant 5472-95). O.L.P. is supported by an ERC Advanced Grant and is a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award holder.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 by the Ecological Society of America
PY - 2019/4
Y1 - 2019/4
N2 - The forests of western Amazonia are among the most diverse tree communities on Earth, yet this exceptional diversity is distributed highly unevenly within and among communities. In particular, a small number of dominant species account for the majority of individuals, whereas the large majority of species are locally and regionally extremely scarce. By definition, dominant species contribute little to local species richness (alpha diversity), yet the importance of dominant species in structuring patterns of spatial floristic turnover (beta diversity) has not been investigated. Here, using a network of 207 forest inventory plots, we explore the role of dominant species in determining regional patterns of beta diversity (community-level floristic turnover and distance-decay relationships) across a range of habitat types in northern lowland Peru. Of the 2,031 recorded species in our data set, only 99 of them accounted for 50% of individuals. Using these 99 species, it was possible to reconstruct the overall features of regional beta diversity patterns, including the location and dispersion of habitat types in multivariate space, and distance-decay relationships. In fact, our analysis demonstrated that regional patterns of beta diversity were better maintained by the 99 dominant species than by the 1,932 others, whether quantified using species-abundance data or species presence–absence data. Our results reveal that dominant species are normally common only in a single forest type. Therefore, dominant species play a key role in structuring western Amazonian tree communities, which in turn has important implications, both practically for designing effective protected areas, and more generally for understanding the determinants of beta diversity patterns.
AB - The forests of western Amazonia are among the most diverse tree communities on Earth, yet this exceptional diversity is distributed highly unevenly within and among communities. In particular, a small number of dominant species account for the majority of individuals, whereas the large majority of species are locally and regionally extremely scarce. By definition, dominant species contribute little to local species richness (alpha diversity), yet the importance of dominant species in structuring patterns of spatial floristic turnover (beta diversity) has not been investigated. Here, using a network of 207 forest inventory plots, we explore the role of dominant species in determining regional patterns of beta diversity (community-level floristic turnover and distance-decay relationships) across a range of habitat types in northern lowland Peru. Of the 2,031 recorded species in our data set, only 99 of them accounted for 50% of individuals. Using these 99 species, it was possible to reconstruct the overall features of regional beta diversity patterns, including the location and dispersion of habitat types in multivariate space, and distance-decay relationships. In fact, our analysis demonstrated that regional patterns of beta diversity were better maintained by the 99 dominant species than by the 1,932 others, whether quantified using species-abundance data or species presence–absence data. Our results reveal that dominant species are normally common only in a single forest type. Therefore, dominant species play a key role in structuring western Amazonian tree communities, which in turn has important implications, both practically for designing effective protected areas, and more generally for understanding the determinants of beta diversity patterns.
KW - Loreto
KW - beta diversity
KW - common species
KW - dominance
KW - habitat specificity
KW - rare species
KW - species turnover
KW - tree species
KW - tropical forest communities
KW - western Amazonia
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U2 - 10.1002/ecy.2636
DO - 10.1002/ecy.2636
M3 - Article
C2 - 30693479
AN - SCOPUS:85062334979
SN - 0012-9658
VL - 100
JO - Ecology
JF - Ecology
IS - 4
M1 - e02636
ER -