Functional composition of the Amazonian tree flora and forests

  • Hans ter Steege
  • , Lourens Poorter
  • , Jesús Aguirre-Gutiérrez
  • , Claire Fortunel
  • , William Magnusson
  • , Oliver Phillips
  • , Edwin Pos
  • , Bruno Garcia Luize
  • , Chris Baraloto
  • , Juan Ernesto Guevara
  • , María-José Endara
  • , Tim Baker
  • , Maria Natalia Umaña
  • , Masha van der Sande
  • , Maihyra Marina Pombo
  • , Matt McGlone
  • , Freddie Draper
  • , Iêda Leão do Amaral
  • , Luiz de Souza Coelho
  • , Florian Wittmann
  • Francisca Dionízia de Almeida Matos, Diógenes de Andrade Lima Filho, Rafael Salomão, Carolina Castilho, Marcelo de Jesus Veiga Carim, Maria Teresa Fernandez Piedade, Daniel Sabatier, Jean-François Molino, Layon Demarchi, Juan David Cardenas Revilla, Jochen Schöngart, Mariana Victória Irume, Maria Pires Martins, José Renan da Silva Guimarães, José Ferreira Ramos, Olaf S. Bánki, Adriano Costa Quaresma, Nigel Pitman, Carlos Peres, Domingos de Jesus Rodrigues, Joseph Hawes, Everton José Almeida, Luciane Ferreira Barbosa, Larissa Cavalheiro, Márcia Cléia Vilela dos Santos, Evlyn Márcia Moraes de Leão Novo, Percy Núñez Vargas, Thiago Sanna Freire Silva, Eduardo Martins Venticinque, Angelo Gilberto Manzatto, Neidiane Farias Costa Reis, John Terborgh, Katia Regina Casula, Euridice Honorio Coronado, Abel Monteagudo Mendoza, Juan Carlos Montero, Cintia Rodrigues De Souza, Marcus Vinicio Neves de Oliveira, Flávia Costa, Julien Engel, Ted Feldpausch, Nicolás Castaño Arboleda, Flávia Machado Durgante, Charles Eugene Zartman, Timothy Killeen, Beatriz Marimon, Ben Hur Marimon-Junior, Rodolfo Vasquez, Bonifacio Mostacedo, Rafael Assis, Dário Dantas do Amaral, Hernán Castellanos, John Ethan Householder, Marcelo Brilhante de Medeiros, Marcelo Fragomeni Simon, Ana Andrade, José Luís Camargo, Susan Laurance, William Laurance, Lorena Maniguaje Rincón, Gisele Biem Mori, Juliana Schietti, Thaiane Sousa, Emanuelle de Sousa Farias, Maria Aparecida Lopes, José Leonardo Lima Magalhães, Henrique Eduardo Mendonça Nascimento, Helder Lima de Queiroz, Caroline Vasconcelos, Gerardo Aymard C, Roel Brienen, Pâmella Leite de Sousa Assis, Darlene Gris, Karoline Aparecida Felix Ribeiro, Pablo Stevenson, Alejandro Araujo-Murakami, Bruno Barçante Ladvocat Cintra, Yuri Oliveira Feitosa, Hugo Mogollón, Miles Silman, Leandro Valle Ferreira, José Rafael Lozada, James Comiskey, José Julio de Toledo, Gabriel Damasco, Roosevelt García-Villacorta, Aline Lopes, Marcos Rios Paredes, Alberto Vicentini, Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira, Fernando Cornejo Valverde, Alfonso Alonso, Luzmila Arroyo, Francisco Dallmeier, Vitor Gomes, William Nauray Huari, David Neill, Maria Cristina Peñuela Mora, Daniel de Aguiar, Flávia Rodrigues Barbosa, Yennie Bredin, Rainiellen de Sá Carpanedo, Fernanda Antunes Carvalho, Fernanda Coelho de Souza, Kenneth Feeley, Rogerio Gribel, Torbjørn Haugaasen, Janaína Costa Noronha, Marcelo Petratti Pansonato, John Pipoly, Jos Barlow, Erika Berenguer, Izaias Brasil da Silva, Joice Ferreira, Maria Julia Ferreira, Paul Fine, Marcelino Carneiro Guedes, Carolina Levis, Juan Carlos Licona, Boris Eduardo Villa Zegarra, Vincent Antoine Vos, Carlos Cerón, Émile Fonty, Terry Henkel, Isau Huamantupa-Chuquimaco, Marcos Silveira, Juliana Stropp, Raquel Thomas, Doug Daly, Kyle Dexter, William Milliken, Guido Pardo Molina, Toby Pennington, Bianca Weiss Albuquerque, Wegliane Campelo, Alfredo Fuentes Claros, Bente Klitgaard, José Luis Marcelo Pena, Luis Torres Montenegro, J. Sebastián Tello, Corine Vriesendorp, Jerome Chave, Anthony Di Fiore, Renato Richard Hilário, Luciana de Oliveira Pereira, Juan Fernando Phillips, Gonzalo Rivas-Torres, Tinde van Andel, Patricio von Hildebrand, William Balee, Edelcilio Marques Barbosa, Luiz Carlos de Matos Bonates, Hilda Paulette Dávila Doza, Ricardo Zárate Gómez, George Pepe Gallardo Gonzales, Therany Gonzales, Bruce Hoffman, André Braga Junqueira, Yadvinder Malhi, Ires Paula de Andrade Miranda, Linder Felipe Mozombite Pinto, Adriana Prieto, Agustín Rudas, Ademir Ruschel, Natalino Silva, César Vela, Egleé Zent, Stanford Zent, Angela Cano, Yrma Andreina Carrero Márquez, Diego Correa, Janaina Barbosa Pedrosa Costa, Bernardo Monteiro Flores, David Galbraith, Milena Holmgren, Michelle Kalamandeen, Guilherme Lobo, Tony Mori Vargas, Marcelo Trindade Nascimento, Alexandre Oliveira, Hirma Ramirez-Angulo, Maira Rocha, Veridiana Vizoni Scudeller, Geertje van der Heijden, Emilio Vilanova Torre, Cláudia Baider, Henrik Balslev, Sasha Cárdenas, Luisa Fernanda Casas, William Farfan-Rios, Reynaldo Linares-Palomino, Casimiro Mendoza, Italo Mesones, Germaine Alexander Parada, Armando Torres-Lezama, Daniel Villarroel, Roderick Zagt, Miguel Alexiades, Edmar Almeida de Oliveira, Riley Fortier, Karina Garcia-Cabrera, Lionel Hernandez, Walter Palacios Cuenca, Susamar Pansini, Daniela Pauletto, Freddy Ramirez Arevalo, Adeilza Felipe Sampaio, Elvis Valderrama Sandoval, Luis Valenzuela Gamarra, Aurora Levesley, Georgia Pickavance

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Articlepeer-review

Abstract

Plants cope with the environment by displaying large phenotypic variation. Two spectra of global plant form and function have been identified: a size spectrum from small to tall species with increasing stem tissue density, leaf size, and seed mass; a leaf economics spectrum reflecting slow to fast returns on investments in leaf nutrients and carbon. When species assemble to communities it is assumed that these spectra are filtered by the environment to produce community level functional composition. It is unknown what are the main drivers for community functional composition in a large area such as Amazonia. We use 13 functional traits, including wood density, seed mass, leaf characteristics, breeding system, nectar production, fruit type, and root characteristics of 812 tree genera (5211 species), and find that they describe two main axes found at the global scale. At community level, the first axis captures not only the ‘fast-slow spectrum’, but also most size-related traits. Climate and disturbance explain a minor part of this variance compared to soil fertility. Forests on poor soils differ largely in terms of trait values from those on rich soils. Trait composition and soil fertility exert a strong influence on forest functioning: biomass and relative biomass production.
Original languageEnglish
Article number355
Pages (from-to)article no. 355
Number of pages17
JournalCommunications Biology
Volume8
Issue number1
Early online date3 Mar 2025
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 3 Mar 2025

Keywords

  • Aboveground biomass
  • Allometric models
  • Aluminum accumulation
  • Climate surfaces
  • Dicymbe-corymbosa caesalpiniaceae
  • Habitat specialization
  • Seed size
  • Species-richness
  • Tropical rain-forests
  • Wood density

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