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1,271 results for “tropical forest”
Drivers of soil organic carbon stock during tropical forest succession
<p>Soil organic matter contributes to productivity in terrestrial ecosystems and contains more carbon than is found in the atmosphere. Yet, there is little understanding of soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration processes during tropical forest succession, particularly after land abandonment from agriculture practices.</p> <p>Here we used vegetation and environmental data from two large-scale surveys covering a total landscape area of 20,000 ha in Southeast Asia to investigate the effects of plant species diversity, functional trait diversity, phylogenetic diversity, aboveground biomass, and environmental factors on SOC sequestration during forest succession.</p> <p>We found that functional trait diversity plays an important role in determining SOC sequestration across successional trajectories. Increases in SOC carbon storage were associated with indirect positive effects of species diversity and succession age <em>via</em> functional trait diversity, but phylogenetic diversity and aboveground biomass showed no significant relationship with SOC stock. Furthermore, the effects of soil properties and functional trait diversity on SOC carbon storage shift across elevation.</p> <p>Synthesis: Our results suggest that reforestation and restoration management practices that implement a trait-based approach by combining long-lived and short-lived species (conservative and acquisitive traits) to increase plant functional diversity could enhance SOC sequestration for climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, as well as accelerate recovery of healthy soils.</p>
Throughfall exclusion and fertilization effects on tropical dry forest tree plantations, a large-scale experiment
<p>Across tropical ecosystems, global environmental change is causing drier climatic conditions and increased nutrient deposition. Such changes represent large uncertainties due to unknown interactions between drought and nutrient availability in controlling ecosystem net primary productivity (NPP). Using a large-scale manipulative experiment, we studied for 4 years whether nutrient availability affects the individual and integrated responses of aboveground and belowground ecosystem processes to throughfall exclusion in 30-year-old mixed plantations of tropical dry forest tree species in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. We used a factorial design with four treatments: control, fertilization (F), drought (D), and drought + fertilization (D + F). While we found that a 13 %–15 % reduction in soil moisture only led to weak effects in the studied ecosystem processes, NPP increased as a function of F and D + F. The relative contribution of each biomass flux to NPP varied depending on the treatment, with woody biomass being more important for F and root biomass for D + F and D. Moreover, the F treatment showed modest increases in maximum canopy cover. Plant functional type (i.e., N fixation or deciduousness) and not the experimental manipulations was the main source of variation in tree growth. Belowground processes also responded to experimental treatments, as we found a decrease in nodulation for F plots and an increase in microbial carbon use efficiency 25 for F and D plots. Our results emphasize that nutrient availability, more so than modest reductions in soil moisture, limits ecosystem processes in tropical dry forests and that soil fertility interactions with other aspects of drought intensity (e.g., vapor pressure deficit) are yet to be explored.</p>
Figure 1 in Revisiting the ideas of trees as templates and the competition paradigm in pairwise analyses of ground-dwelling ant species occurrences in a tropical forest
Figure 1 Location of REGUA in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Data from: Hydraulic vulnerability of tropical forests is largely independent of water availability
<p>Tropical rainforest woody plants have been thought to have uniformly low resistance to hydraulic failure and to function near the edge of their hydraulic safety margin, making these ecosystems vulnerable to drought; however, this may not be the case. Using data collected at 30 tropical forest sites for three key traits associated with drought tolerance, we show that site-level hydraulic diversity of leaf turgor loss point, resistance to embolism (P<sub>50</sub>), and hydraulic safety margins (HSMs) is high across tropical forests and largely independent of water availability. Species with high HSMs (>1 MPa) and low P<sub>50</sub> values (<-2 MPa) are common across the wet and dry tropics. This high site-level hydraulic diversity, largely decoupled from water stress, could influence which species are favored and become dominant under a drying climate. High hydraulic diversity could also make these ecosystems more resilient to variable rainfall regimes.</p>
Tropical forests are mainly unstratified especially in Amazonia and regions with lower fertility or higher temperatures
<p>The stratified nature of tropical forest structure had been noted by early explorers, but until recent use of satellite-based LiDAR (GEDI, or Global Ecosystems Dynamics Investigation LiDAR), it was not possible to quantify stratification across all tropical forests. Understanding stratification is important because by some estimates, a majority of the world's species inhabit tropical forest canopies. Stratification can modify vertical microenvironment, and thus can affect a species' susceptibility to anthropogenic climate change. Here we find that, based on analyzing each GEDI 25m diameter footprint in tropical forests (after screening for human impact), most footprints (60-90%) do not have multiple layers of vegetation. The most common forest structure has a minimum plant area index (PAI) at ~40m followed by an increase in PAI until ~15m followed by a decline in PAI to the ground layer (described hereafter as a one peak footprint). There are large geographic patterns to forest structure within the Amazon basin (ranging between 60–90% one peak) and between the Amazon (79 ± 9 % sd) and SE Asia or Africa (72 ± 14 % v 73 ±11 %). The number of canopy layers is significantly correlated with tree height (r<sup>2</sup>=0.12) and forest biomass (r<sup>2</sup>=0.14). Environmental variables such as maximum temperature (Tmax) (r<sup>2</sup>=0.05), vapor pressure deficit (VPD) (r<sup>2</sup>=0.03) and soil fertility proxies (e.g. total cation exchange capacity - r<sup>2</sup>=0.01) were also statistically significant but less strongly correlated given the complex and heterogeneous local structural to regional climatic interactions. Certain boundaries, like the Pebas Formation and Ecoregions, clearly delineate continental scale structural changes. More broadly, deviation from more ideal conditions (e.g. lower fertility or higher temperatures) leads to shorter, less stratified forests with lower biomass.</p>
The potential for natural forest regeneration in tropical regions
<p>Extensive forest restoration is a key strategy to meet nature-based sustainable development goals and provide multiple social and environmental benefits. Yet achieving forest restoration at scale requires cost-effective methods. Tree planting in degraded landscapes is a popular but costly forest restoration method, which often results in less biodiverse forests when compared to natural regeneration techniques under similar conditions. Here, we assess the current spatial distribution of pantropical natural forest (from 2000-2016) and use this information to present the first model of the potential for natural regeneration across tropical forested countries and biomes at 30-meter spatial resolution. We estimate that 215 million hectares - an area greater than the entire country of Mexico - have potential for natural forest regeneration, representing an above-ground carbon sequestration potential of 23.4 Gt CO2 (range 21.1-25.7 Gt) over 30 years. Five countries (Brazil, Indonesia, China, Mexico, and Colombia) account for 52% of this estimated potential, showcasing the need for targeting restoration initiatives that leverage natural regeneration potential. Our results facilitate broader equitable decision-making processes that capitalise on the widespread opportunity for natural regeneration to help achieve national and global environmental agendas. </p> <p><em>File descriptions:</em></p> <p><em>pnv_pct_30m - files named with this prefix are the 30m continuous probability predictions of the potential for natural regeneration, stored as integers representing percentages to minimise file sizes </em></p> <p><em>tile_index_number_map.jpg – corresponding locations of the ‘pnv_pct_30m’ tiles </em></p> <p><em>prop pnv v1 1km.tif - for display purposes only (not used in the Williams et al. analysis) the approximately 1km resolution overview raster representing the proportion of the area of each pixel that has the potential for natural regeneration </em></p> <p><em>pnv_bin_30m.zip - this .zip folder contains the 30m resolution binary predictions (where a value of >0.5 is allocated a value of 1, acknowledging users may prefer to use a different threshold for their context) of areas suitable for natural regeneration </em></p> <p><em>The 30m resolution datasets have been tiled into 10 degree latitude/longitude tiles</em></p>
Demographic rates of 165 tree species in a moist tropical forest
<p>Mortality, recruitment and growth rates of 165 tree species on Barro Colorado Island from 1990 to 2014. The demographic rates are calculated based on the BCI (Barro Colorado Island) plot data. For more information on the BCI plot data, please see https://doi.org/10.15146/5xcp-0d46 (Condit et al., 2019). Reference: Condit, R. et al. (2019). Complete data from the Barro Colorado 50-ha plot: 423617 trees, 35 years, Dryad, Dataset, https://doi.org/10.15146/5xcp-0d46. For more information on the calculation of demographic rates, please see https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.14424.</p>
Composition of non-volant small mammals inhabiting a degradation gradient in a lowland tropical forest in Uganda
<p><span>A study aimed at assessing the structure of rodent and shrew assemblages inhabiting a degradation gradient while considering rainfall patterns was conducted in one of the few remaining lowland tropical forests in Eastern Africa. We collected a unique dataset of 1411 rodents and shrews, representing 24 species (19 rodents, 5 shrews). The most abundant species alternated in dominance as species abundance significantly fluctuated across the study period following a degradation gradient, </span><span>While only generalist species were observed near the degraded forest edge, habitat specialists such as <em>Deomys ferrugineus, Malacomys longipes</em> and <em>Scutisorex congicus</em>, were observed in the primary forest interior suggesting<span class="gnkrckgcgsb"><span> a significant</span></span></span><span class="gnkrckgcgsb"><span> association between species and their associated habitats and habitat attributes</span></span><span>. There was also an observed correlation between rainfall patterns and species abundance. Capturing more species in adjacent fallows and along the degraded forest edge suggests that many species are able to live in degraded habitats that offer a variety of food resources. The continued pressure on forest resources, however, may lead to changes in habitat structure. This, coupled with the dependence of forest ecological functions on rainfall, which is typically not the case, may ultimately cause the local extinction of highly specialized but less adaptable species.</span></p>
Tapajos K67 tropical forest seasonal flux tower data
<p>Seasonal (16-day) eddy covariance measurements that include water, carbon, and energy flux, radiation, canopy temperature, humidity, and ancillary calculations such as evaporation, transpiration, and leaf area index. Data was collected at the Tapajós National Forest, Santarem K67 (BR-Sa1), a tropical primary forest (2.857°S, 54.959°W). Measurements correspond to the periods: April 2001 - January 2006, July 2008 - July 2012, and January 2015 - July 2020. The 16-day fluxes and meteorological data were obtained from an average daily cycle based on hourly observations. As a result, we refrain from assigning greater significance to specific hours when the fluxes tend to be complete, and vice versa (for instance, in cases of missing flux values due to afternoon rainfall events). Daytime values were selected as above a 5 W m<sup>-2</sup> top of the atmosphere radiation (TOA; W m<sup>-2</sup>) and labeled as LE<sub>daytime</sub> in the case of latent heat flux (LE), H<sub>daytime</sub> for sensible heat flux (H), and so on.</p>
Data from: leaf functional diversity and environmental filtering in a tropical dry forest: comparison between two geological substrates
<p><span>The role of geological substrate in shaping plant community functional diversity remains poorly understood. Considering the involvement of leaves in the energy, water and nutrient economics of plants, we hypothesized that leaves experience geology-related filtering, impacting functional attributes and functional leaf community diversity on different substrates. We studied tropical dry forest communities on limestone and siliciclastic phyllite-derived soils, comparing their functional diversity and soil physico-chemical properties. We predicted the most benign habitat (less severe filter) to be associated with higher leaf functional diversity and an acquisitive strategy prevalence, while the more stressful habitat should show conservative leaf traits and lower leaf functional diversity. We measured six traits in 31 common tree species (representing ~80% of community crown cover): leaf area, specific leaf area, leaf thickness, leaf dry matter content, petiole length, and leaf blade narrowness. Leaf functional diversity was assessed through the functional trait dispersion metric. Intraspecific functional variation was examined in 25 species shared between substrates. The limestone substrate was more fertile (higher phosphorous) with higher water retention, while phyllite had higher nitrogen and lower humidity. Principal component analysis segregated plots by substrate, with limestone plots being more clustered. Community leaf functional diversity was higher in the limestone forest. Most species examined showed inter-substrate trait differences in at least one leaf functional trait. The two substrates constituted distinct growth environments, with the more benign substrate associated to higher community functional leaf diversity. The intraspecific analysis revealed the prevalence of acquisitive traits in the more benign and more conservative traits in the more stressful habitat. This study advances our understanding of the role of geological substrate as an environmental filter in tropical dry forest, influencing leaf functional responses and emphasizing the importance of intraspecific functional variation.</span></p>
Environment differentially affects the functional and phylogenetic structures of plant communities in a dry evergreen Afromontane tropical forest
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>Testing how local environmental conditions influence plant community assembly is important to understand the underlying mechanisms that promote and/or maintain biodiversity. Functional traits are used to find the broad spectrum of resource use strategies that plants use to</span><span> respond to environmental variation</span><span>. The patterns and drivers of plant community assembly through the lens of traits and phylogeny, however, remain to be studied in a uniquely biodiversity rich but poorly known fragmented dry Afromontane forest of Ethiopia. Here, we combined trait and community phylogenetic data from thirty sampling plots of 20 × 20 m size to determine the functional and phylogenetic structures and their drivers in a fragmented, human-dominated dry evergreen Afromontane forest. We found phylogenetic and functional clustering of plants in which the effect of environment was found to be trait specific. A weak phylogenetic signal for traits was detected suggesting that species resource use strategies may not be inferred using species phylogenetic distance. Additionally, we found functional traits to be weak in predicting species abundance distribution. Overall, while this study shows a non-random community assembly pattern, it also highlights the importance of deterministic processes being trait specific. </span></p>
Data from: Contrasting sap flow characteristics between pioneer and late-successional tree species in secondary tropical montane forests of Eastern Himalaya, India
Abstract The interactive role of life-history traits and environmental forcing on plant-water relations is crucial for understanding species response to climate change but remains poorly understood in secondary tropical montane forests (TMFs). Comparing contrasting life-history traits (pioneer vs late-successional species) in a biodiverse Eastern Himalayan secondary TMF, we investigated sap flow responses in co-occurring pioneer species, Symplocos racemosa (n=5) and Eurya acuminata (n=5), and late-successional species, Castanopsis hystrix (n=3), using modified Granier's Thermal Dissipation probes. The fast-growing pioneers S. racemosa and E. acuminata) had 2.1- and 1.6-times higher sap flux density than the late-successional C. hystrix, respectively, and exhibited characteristics of long-lived pioneer species. Significant radial and azimuthal variability in sap flow (V) between species was observed and attributed to life history traits and the canopy's access to sunlight. Nocturnal V (1800-0500 hr) was 13.8 % of daily V and is attributed to stem recharge for evening V (1800-2300 hr) and to endogenous stomatal controls for pre-dawn V (0000-0500 hr). Both the shallow-rooted pioneer species exhibited midday depression in V attributed to photosensitivity and diel moisture stress response. In contrast, deep-rooted C. hystrix transpired unaffected across the dry season likely accessing groundwater. Thus, the secondary broadleaved TMFs, with the dominance of shallow-rooted pioneers, are more prone to the negative impacts of drier and warmer winters than primary forests, which are dominated by deep-rooted species. The study provides an empirical understanding of life-history traits and microclimate modulating plant-water use in widely distributed secondary TMFs in Eastern Himalaya and highlights their vulnerability against warmer winters and reduced snowfall due to climate change.
Soundscapes and artificial intelligence provide powerful tools to track biodiversity recovery in tropical forests
<p><span>Tropical forest recovery is fundamental to addressing the intertwined climate and biodiversity loss crises.</span><span> While regenerating trees sequester carbon relatively quickly, the pace of biodiversity recovery remains contentious. </span><span>Here, we use bioacoustics and meta-barcoding to measure forest recovery post-agriculture in a global biodiversity hotspot in Ecuador</span><span>. We show that the community composition, and not species richness, of vocalizing vertebrates identified by experts reflects the restoration gradient. Two automated measures – an acoustic index model and a bird community derived from an independently developed Convolutional Neural Network – correlated well with restoration (adj-R<sup>2</sup> = 0.62 and 0.69, respectively). Importantly, both measures reflected composition of non-vocalizing nocturnal insects identified via meta-barcoding. </span><span>We show that such automated monitoring tools, </span><span>based on new technologies,</span><span> can effectively monitor the success of forest recovery, using robust and reproducible data. </span><span>Crucially, this will help ensure that forest restoration efforts result in resilient, biodiverse tropical forests and not simply 'carbon farms'.</span></p>
Data from: Incomplete recovery of tree community composition and rare species after 120 years of tropical forest succession in Panama
<p>Determining how fully tropical forests regenerating on abandoned land recover characteristics of old-growth forests is increasingly important for understanding their role in conserving rare species and maintaining ecosystem services. Despite this, our understanding of forest structure and community composition recovery throughout succession is incomplete, as many tropical chronosequences do not extend beyond the first 50 years of succession. Here, we examined trajectories of forest recovery across eight 1-hectare plots in middle and later stages of forest succession (40 – 120 years) and five 1-hectare old-growth plots, in the Barro Colorado Nature Monument (BCNM), Panama. We first verified that forest age had a greater effect than edaphic or topographic variation on forest structure, diversity and composition and then corroborated results from smaller plots censused 20 years previously. Tree species diversity (but not species richness) and forest structure had fully recovered to old-growth levels by 40 and 90 years, respectively. However, rare species were missing, and old-growth specialists were in low abundance, in the mid- and late secondary forest plots, leading to incomplete recovery of species composition even by 120 years into succession. We also found evidence that dominance early in succession by a long-lived pioneer led to altered forest structure and delayed recovery of species diversity and composition well past a century after land abandonment. Our results illustrate the critical importance of old-growth and old secondary forests for biodiversity conservation, given that recovery of community composition may take several centuries, particularly when a long-lived pioneer dominates in early succession.</p>
Dispersal limitation predicts the spatial and temporal filtering of tropical bird communities in isolated forest fragments
<p>The link between dispersal traits and patterns of community assembly remains a frontier in understanding how vertebrate communities persist in fragmented landscapes. Using experimental release trials and intensive field surveys of bird communities in fragmented forests of the Peruvian and Colombian Andes, we demonstrate that morphological traits related to movement (1) predict experimental flight performance and (2) exhibit dispersal-mediated environmental filtering at the community scale. After correcting for body size, four traits hypothesized to influence flight ability (wing length, wing pointedness, wing loading, and eye size) predicted distance flown across a hostile experimental landscape, with successful species having significantly longer pointed wings, carrying less mass per unit wing area (i.e., lower wing loading), and having smaller eyes. Species with larger eyes also displayed increased flight latency, potentially due to disability glare. At the community scale we detected a gradient of dispersal-mediated environmental filtering in fragments compared to reference forest within the same landscape, with relative differences in trait values explained by the temporal and spatial extent of patch isolation. In the Colombian landscape where fragments had been isolated for > 60 years, communities were filtered for species with long and narrow wings and small eyes, especially within the most spatially isolated fragments. We observed the opposite pattern in the more recently fragmented Peruvian landscape (15-30 years): communities within fragments tended to have shorter and more rounded wings compared to those in nearby contiguous forests, suggesting that dispersal-limited species accumulate in the initial years following patch isolation due to "restricted dispersal" and represent an extinction debt yet to be paid. Our results (1) experimentally validate the use of morphological traits as proxies for movement ability in fragmented landscapes, (2) demonstrate that visual acuity functions as a novel dimension of dispersal limitation, and (3) quantify how the spatial and temporal components of patch isolation produce a gradient in dispersal-mediated environmental filtering and extinction debt for communities inhabiting fragments.</p>
Flooding drives tropical dry forest tree community assembly in southeast Brazil
<p><span>In this study, we characterized and compared vegetation types associated with geomorphological units susceptible to distinct flooding levels. Differences in vegetation are related to landform variations. We aimed to (i) characterize the vegetation structure and quantify community compositional differences among landforms and (ii) compare landforms soil characteristics and how these correlate with the tree vegetation. The study area is located in the Brazilian Caatinga Domain, near the Verde Grande River, a tributary of São Francisco River (coordinates 14º 54' 38'' S 43º 42' 53'' W). We allocated six plots in each landform sampled from wettest to driest sites: (i) Marginal Dike (RF – Riparian Forest), (ii) Upper terrace (RWF – Riparian Wetland Forest), (iii) Lower Terrace (WF – Wetland Forest), (iv) Lower Plain (OFF – Occasionally Flooded Forest), and (v) Upper Plain (UF - Unflooded Forest). </span>We conducted multivariate analyses (non-metric multidimensional scaling and Principal component analyses) to determine if the five sampled environments formed distinct floristic and environmental groups across the flooding gradient. We used ANOVA and Tukey post-hoc tests to assess soil variable differences among vegetation types (where relationships between edaphic variations and tree communities' floristic-structural patterns are the purpose of each analysis). <span>A total of 1422 individuals, 26 families, 70 genera, and 89 species were recorded. The NMDS revealed two distinct floristic groups: one group is associated with landforms with assumed higher flood frequency (RF, RWF, WF) and one with less frequently flooded landforms (OFF and UF). The RF, OFF, and UF landforms contained exclusive species (that only occurred in the plots of a particular landform). The species <em>Geofroea spinosa</em> (Fabaceae) was responsible for 70% of the total biomass recorded in the landforms RWF and WF. The soil analysis showed a gradient of soil acidity and fertility related to water saturation, whereby the most frequently flooded plots had the highest acidity values and highest fertility. We found that flood-related conditions significantly influence tree community structure and species distribution in this floodplain in the Brazilian Caatinga Domain.</span></p>
Tree species abundance through time in tropical forest census plots, Panama
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Data from: Incomplete recovery of tree community composition and rare species after 120 years of tropical forest succession in Panama
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Data from: Vertebrate seed predation can limit recruitment of later-successional species in tropical forest restoration
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Empirical data and model simulations of the effect of repeated hurricanes on soil carbon dynamics in a humid tropical forest
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.