ORCID Profile
0000-0002-3919-4493
Current Organisation
University of Leeds
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Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 26-04-2023
DOI: 10.1038/S41586-023-05971-3
Abstract: Tropical forests face increasing climate risk 1,2 , yet our ability to predict their response to climate change is limited by poor understanding of their resistance to water stress. Although xylem embolism resistance thresholds (for ex le, $$\\varPsi $$ Ψ 50 ) and hydraulic safety margins (for ex le, HSM 50 ) are important predictors of drought-induced mortality risk 3–5 , little is known about how these vary across Earth’s largest tropical forest. Here, we present a pan-Amazon, fully standardized hydraulic traits dataset and use it to assess regional variation in drought sensitivity and hydraulic trait ability to predict species distributions and long-term forest biomass accumulation. Parameters $$\\varPsi $$ Ψ 50 and HSM 50 vary markedly across the Amazon and are related to average long-term rainfall characteristics. Both $$\\varPsi $$ Ψ 50 and HSM 50 influence the biogeographical distribution of Amazon tree species. However, HSM 50 was the only significant predictor of observed decadal-scale changes in forest biomass. Old-growth forests with wide HSM 50 are gaining more biomass than are low HSM 50 forests. We propose that this may be associated with a growth–mortality trade-off whereby trees in forests consisting of fast-growing species take greater hydraulic risks and face greater mortality risk. Moreover, in regions of more pronounced climatic change, we find evidence that forests are losing biomass, suggesting that species in these regions may be operating beyond their hydraulic limits. Continued climate change is likely to further reduce HSM 50 in the Amazon 6,7 , with strong implications for the Amazon carbon sink.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 04-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S41559-021-01418-Y
Abstract: The forests of Amazonia are among the most bio erse plant communities on Earth. Given the immediate threats posed by climate and land-use change, an improved understanding of how this extraordinary bio ersity is spatially organized is urgently required to develop effective conservation strategies. Most Amazonian tree species are extremely rare but a few are common across the region. Indeed, just 227 'hyperdominant' species account for >50% of all in iduals >10 cm diameter at 1.3 m in height. Yet, the degree to which the phenomenon of hyperdominance is sensitive to tree size, the extent to which the composition of dominant species changes with size class and how evolutionary history constrains tree hyperdominance, all remain unknown. Here, we use a large floristic dataset to show that, while hyperdominance is a universal phenomenon across forest strata, different species dominate the forest understory, midstory and canopy. We further find that, although species belonging to a range of phylogenetically dispersed lineages have become hyperdominant in small size classes, hyperdominants in large size classes are restricted to a few lineages. Our results demonstrate that it is essential to consider all forest strata to understand regional patterns of dominance and composition in Amazonia. More generally, through the lens of 654 hyperdominant species, we outline a tractable pathway for understanding the functioning of half of Amazonian forests across vertical strata and geographical locations.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 10-2023
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 03-03-2017
Abstract: The extent to which pre-Columbian societies altered Amazonian landscapes is hotly debated. We performed a basin-wide analysis of pre-Columbian impacts on Amazonian forests by overlaying known archaeological sites in Amazonia with the distributions and abundances of 85 woody species domesticated by pre-Columbian peoples. Domesticated species are five times more likely than nondomesticated species to be hyperdominant. Across the basin, the relative abundance and richness of domesticated species increase in forests on and around archaeological sites. In southwestern and eastern Amazonia, distance to archaeological sites strongly influences the relative abundance and richness of domesticated species. Our analyses indicate that modern tree communities in Amazonia are structured to an important extent by a long history of plant domestication by Amazonian peoples.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 11-11-2019
DOI: 10.1038/S41559-019-1007-Y
Abstract: Higher levels of taxonomic and evolutionary ersity are expected to maximize ecosystem function, yet their relative importance in driving variation in ecosystem function at large scales in erse forests is unknown. Using 90 inventory plots across intact, lowland, terra firme, Amazonian forests and a new phylogeny including 526 angiosperm genera, we investigated the association between taxonomic and evolutionary metrics of ersity and two key measures of ecosystem function: aboveground wood productivity and biomass storage. While taxonomic and phylogenetic ersity were not important predictors of variation in biomass, both emerged as independent predictors of wood productivity. Amazon forests that contain greater evolutionary ersity and a higher proportion of rare species have higher productivity. While climatic and edaphic variables are together the strongest predictors of productivity, our results show that the evolutionary ersity of tree species in erse forest stands also influences productivity. As our models accounted for wood density and tree size, they also suggest that additional, unstudied, evolutionarily correlated traits have significant effects on ecosystem function in tropical forests. Overall, our pan-Amazonian analysis shows that greater phylogenetic ersity translates into higher levels of ecosystem function: tropical forest communities with more distantly related taxa have greater wood productivity.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 25-01-2021
Abstract: The extent (or lack) of phylogenetic signal for key ecological traits reveals the role of evolutionary processes on present‐day ecosystem function and hints on future ecological trends under climate change scenarios. This approach has been applied to South American tropical moist forests, but not to the highly threatened seasonally dry tropical forests (SDTF), despite the acknowledgement of their unique evolutionary history. To fill this knowledge gap, we investigated the legacy of evolutionary processes on vital ecological characteristics among SDTF trees: regional dominance, tree size and soil preference. We used tree community data on 313 plots of SDTF (12.52 ha) and locally collected soil data in central‐eastern Brazil. For each assessed trait (three for regional dominance, three for tree size and nine for soil preference), we investigated the legacy of evolution using two different approaches: calculating the extent of phylogenetic signal and comparing the fit of four different models of evolution. Above‐ground woody biomass and tree size showed strong phylogenetic signal. Most of the SDTF biomass stock was concentrated on a few large‐sized and closely related tree genera. Among the soil preference variables, only phosphorus displayed significant, albeit weak, phylogenetic signal. Synthesis . Our study is the first to show that evolutionary constraints related to tree size significantly determine regional biomass stocks of seasonally dry tropical forests (SDTF) in a few closely related tree lineages. This suggests that even isolated SDTF fragments with low taxonomic and phylogenetic ersity can play an important role in the global carbon cycle, storing disproportionally large amounts of carbon in trees that belong to high‐biomass lineages. Whether these lineages also share climate change‐induced mortality risk deserves future investigation, as they are largely responsible for the maintenance of regional SDTF biomass stocks.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 22-05-2020
Abstract: A key uncertainty in climate change models is the thermal sensitivity of tropical forests and how this value might influence carbon fluxes. Sullivan et al. measured carbon stocks and fluxes in permanent forest plots distributed globally. This synthesis of plot networks across climatic and biogeographic gradients shows that forest thermal sensitivity is dominated by high daytime temperatures. This extreme condition depresses growth rates and shortens the time that carbon resides in the ecosystem by killing trees under hot, dry conditions. The effect of temperature is worse above 32°C, and a greater magnitude of climate change thus risks greater loss of tropical forest carbon stocks. Nevertheless, forest carbon stocks are likely to remain higher under moderate climate change if they are protected from direct impacts such as clearance, logging, or fires. Science , this issue p. 869
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No related grants have been discovered for Fernanda Coelho de Souza.