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opencc-zeroDec 2023View details →

Stem decomposition of temperate tree species is determined by stem traits and fungal community composition during early stem decay

Dead trees are vital structural elements in forests playing key roles in the carbon and nutrient cycle. Stem traits and fungal community composition are both important drivers of stem decay, and thereby affect ecosystem functioning, but their relative importance for stem decomposition over time remains unclear. To address this issue, we used a common garden decomposition experiment in a Dutch larch forest hosting fresh logs from 13 common temperate tree species. In total 25 fresh wood and bark traits were measured as indicators of wood accessibility for decomposers, nutritional quality, and chemical or physical defense mechanisms. After one and four years of decay, we assessed the richness and composition of wood-inhabiting fungi using amplicon sequencing and determined the proportional wood density loss. Average proportional wood density loss for the first year was 18.5%, with further decomposition occurring at a rate of 4.3% yr-1 for the subsequent three years across tree species. Proportional wood density loss varied widely across tree species in the first year (8.7-24.8% yr-1) and subsequent years (0-11.3% yr-1). The variation was directly driven by initial wood traits during the first decay year, then later directly driven by bark traits and fungal community composition. Moreover, bark traits affected the composition of wood-inhabiting fungi and thereby indirectly affected decomposition rates. Specifically, traits promoting resource acquisition of the living tree, such as wide conduits that increase accessibility and high nutrient concentration, increased initial wood decomposition rates. Fungal community composition, but not fungal richness explained differences in wood decomposition after four years of exposure in the field, where fungal communities dominated by brown-rot and white-rot Basidiomycetes were linked to higher wood decomposition rate. Synthesis. Understanding what drives deadwood decomposition through time is important to understand the dynamics of carbon stocks. Here, using a tailor-made experimental design in a temperate forest setting, we have shown that stem trait variation is key to understanding the roles of these drivers; Initially, wood traits explained decomposition rates while subsequently, bark traits and fungal decomposer composition drove decomposition rates. These findings inform forest management with a view to selecting tree species to promote carbon storage.

opencc-by-nc-4.0Feb 2024View details →

Data from: Beyond the metropolis: street tree communities and resident perceptions on ecosystem services in small urban centers in India

This dataset includes road transect characteristics, tree data and interview data (linked through transect number) from two cities in India - Kochi and Panjim, collected in 2019-2020 as part of the study: Beyond the metropolis: street tree communities and resident perceptions on ecosystem services in small urban centers in India

opencc-zeroDec 2023View details →

Data from: Tree demographic strategies largely overlap across succession in Neotropical wet and dry forest communities

Secondary tropical forests play an increasingly important role in carbon budgets and biodiversity conservation. Understanding successional trajectories is therefore imperative for guiding forest restoration and climate change mitigation efforts. Forest succession is driven by the demographic strategies – combinations of growth, mortality, and recruitment rates – of the tree species in the community. However, our understanding of demographic diversity in tropical tree species stems almost exclusively from old-growth forests. Here, we assembled demographic information from repeated forest inventories along chronosequences in two wet (Costa Rica, Panama) and two dry (Mexico) Neotropical forests to assess whether the ranges of demographic strategies present in a community shift across succession. We calculated demographic rates for >500 tree species while controlling for canopy status to compare demographic diversity (i.e. the ranges of demographic strategies) in early successional (0-30 years), late successional (30-120 years), and old-growth forests using two-dimensional hypervolumes of pairs of demographic rates. Ranges of demographic strategies largely overlapped across successional stages, and early successional stages already covered the full spectrum of demographic strategies found in old-growth forests. An exception was a group of species characterized by exceptionally high mortality rates that were confined to early successional stages in the two wet forests. The range of demographic strategies did not expand with succession. Our results suggest that studies of long-term forest monitoring plots in old-growth forests, from which most of our current understanding of demographic strategies of tropical tree species is derived, are surprisingly representative of demographic diversity in general, but do not replace the need for further studies in secondary forests.

opencc-by-4.0May 2024View details →

Code for data analysis - intra-community variability of leaf-out in temperate tree canopies

The code and data were used for producing the results of "Phenology across scales: an intercontinental analysis of leaf-out dates in temperate deciduous tree communities", by Delpierre et al.

Table 2 in Changes in a soil microarthropod community in the vicinity of dominant tree species under trampling management at the Safari Zoological Center, Israel

Table 2 Mean values (± SD) of soil physical and chemical parameters at different treatment sites at the Safari Zoological Center, Israel, December 2013. SM = soil moisture, OM = organic matter, pH = soil pH, SEC = soil electrical conductivity, SD = soil density, WHC = water-holding capacity. OE = open places under enclosure conditions, OT = open places under trampling conditions; EE E. = camaldulensis canopy habitat under enclosure conditions, ET = E. camaldulensis canopy habitat under trampling conditions, TE T =. aphylla canopy habitat under enclosure conditions, TT = T. aphylla canopy habitat under trampling conditions, CE = C. sempervirens canopy habitat under enclosure conditions, CT = C. sempervirens canopy habitat under trampling conditions. Different letters in the same column represent significant difference p at <0.05.<table><tbody><tr><th></th><th>SM (%)</th><th>OM (%)</th><th>pH</th><th>SEC (µ -1) cm</th><th>SD (g -3) cm</th><th>WHC (%)</th></tr></tbody><tbody><tr><th>OE</th><td>25.6±3.4a</td><td>1.1±0.2b</td><td>7.5±0.2b</td><td>87.6±17.5d</td><td>1.1±0.0b</td><td>53.6±0.9ab</td></tr><tr><th>OT</th><td>7.8±1.7c</td><td>0.2±0.0e</td><td>7.6±0.0b</td><td>150.3±51.3c</td><td>1.6±0.0a</td><td>25.6±1.0c</td></tr><tr><th>EE</th><td>16.6±1.6b</td><td>1.3±0.2b</td><td>7.6±0.0b</td><td>130.2±9.4cd</td><td>1.0±0.1c</td><td>52.6±11.1ab</td></tr><tr><th>ET</th><td>23.2±3.8a</td><td>2.0±0.3a</td><td>7.6±0.0b</td><td>255.3±39.6ab</td><td>1.1±0.0bc</td><td>31.9±3.5c</td></tr><tr><th>TE</th><td>21.9±4.4ab</td><td>0.4±0.1d</td><td>7.9±0.0a</td><td>152.0±17.8c</td><td>1.0±0.1c</td><td>52.1±14.6ab</td></tr><tr><th>TT</th><td>14.1±5.2b</td><td>1.1±0.1b</td><td>7.6±0.1b</td><td>254.1±48.0ab</td><td>1.0±0.1c</td><td>43.3±6.2b</td></tr><tr><th>CE</th><td>26.9±3.4a</td><td>0.8±0.3c</td><td>7.6±0.1b</td><td>209.9±22.5b</td><td>1.0±0.1c</td><td>56.3±5.8a</td></tr><tr><th>CT</th><td>22.0±6.0ab</td><td>0.5±0.2d</td><td>7.8±0.1a</td><td>275.9±21.9a</td><td>1.0±0.0c</td><td>43.0±3.9b</td></tr></tbody></table>

Table 3 in Changes in a soil microarthropod community in the vicinity of dominant tree species under trampling management at the Safari Zoological Center, Israel

Table 3 Effects of sampling habitat (“Habitat”), trampling management (“Trampling”), and their interaction on soil parameters, abundance of soil microarthropods, and diversity indices of soil Acari at the Safari Zoological Center, Israel, December 2013 (General linear model, α = 0.05). * p <0.05, ** p <0.01, *** p <0.001.<table><tbody><tr><th>Microarthropods</th><th>d f</th><th>F</th><th>Soil parameters</th><th>d f</th><th>F</th></tr></tbody><tbody><tr><th>Total microarthropod abundance</th><td></td><td></td><td>Soil moisture</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>Model</th><td>8</td><td>15.85***</td><td>Model</td><td>8</td><td>109.38***</td></tr><tr><th>Trampling</th><td>1</td><td>39.13***</td><td>Trampling</td><td>1</td><td>18.46***</td></tr><tr><th>Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>1.65</td><td>Habitat</td><td>3</td><td>5.90**</td></tr><tr><th>Trampling * Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>4.89**</td><td>Trampling * Habitat</td><td>3</td><td>12.84***</td></tr><tr><th>Collembola abundance</th><td></td><td></td><td>Organic matter</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>Model</th><td>8</td><td>4.90**</td><td>Model</td><td>8</td><td>116.32***</td></tr><tr><th>Trampling</th><td>1</td><td>11.18**</td><td>Trampling</td><td>1</td><td>0.05</td></tr><tr><th>Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>2.29</td><td>Habitat</td><td>3</td><td>48.99***</td></tr><tr><th>Trampling * Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>2.56</td><td>Trampling * Habitat</td><td>3</td><td>32.99***</td></tr><tr><th>Other arthropod abundance</th><td></td><td></td><td>Soil pH</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>Model</th><td>8</td><td>1</td><td>Model</td><td>8</td><td>35120.21***</td></tr><tr><th>Trampling</th><td>1</td><td>1.8</td><td>Trampling</td><td>1</td><td>0.5</td></tr><tr><th>Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>0.73</td><td>Habitat</td><td>3</td><td>4.69*</td></tr><tr><th>Trampling * Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>0.73</td><td>Trampling * Habitat</td><td>3</td><td>13.93***</td></tr><tr><th>Soil Acari abundance</th><td></td><td></td><td>Electrical conductivity</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>Model</th><td>8</td><td>18.85***</td><td>Model</td><td>8</td><td>156.31***</td></tr><tr><th>Trampling</th><td>1</td><td>43.09***</td><td>Trampling</td><td>1</td><td>61.80***</td></tr><tr><th>Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>0.88</td><td>Habitat</td><td>3</td><td>20.89***</td></tr><tr><th>Trampling * Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>3.60*</td><td>Trampling * Habitat</td><td>3</td><td>1.76</td></tr><tr><th>Taxon richness of soil Acari</th><td></td><td></td><td>Soil density</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>Model</th><td>8</td><td>16.11***</td><td>Model</td><td>8</td><td>1769.86***</td></tr><tr><th>Trampling</th><td>1</td><td>34.68***</td><td>Trampling</td><td>1</td><td>57.12***</td></tr><tr><th>Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>3.17*</td><td>Habitat</td><td>3</td><td>82.99***</td></tr><tr><th>Trampling * Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>1.23</td><td>Trampling * Habitat</td><td>3</td><td>36.99***</td></tr><tr><th>Shannon index of soil Acari</th><td></td><td></td><td>Water-holding capacity</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>Model</th><td>8</td><td>18.88***</td><td>Model</td><td>8</td><td>155.49***</td></tr><tr><th>Trampling</th><td>1</td><td>51.07***</td><td>Trampling</td><td>1</td><td>45.98***</td></tr><tr><th>Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>4.03*</td><td>Habitat</td><td>3</td><td>3.22*</td></tr><tr><th>Trampling * Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>0.78</td><td>Trampling * Habitat</td><td>3</td><td>2.6</td></tr><tr><th>Simpson index of soil Acari</th></tr><tr><th>Model</th><td>8</td><td>13.42***</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>Trampling</th><td>1</td><td>0</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>7.47**</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>Trampling * Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>5.22**</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>Evenness index of soil Acari</th></tr><tr><th>Model</th><td>8</td><td>42.11***</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>Trampling</th><td>1</td><td>120.61***</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>3.68*</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>Trampling * Habitat</th><td>3</td><td>1.82</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

Table 1 in Changes in a soil microarthropod community in the vicinity of dominant tree species under trampling management at the Safari Zoological Center, Israel

Table 1 Sampling design (replication = 4) for sites at the Safari Zoological Center, Israel, December 2013. Herbaceous ground cover: +++ patchy; + a few plants, – no plants. OE = open places under enclosure conditions, OT = open places under trampling conditions; EE E =. camaldulensis canopy habitat under enclosure conditions, ET = E. camaldulensis canopy habitat under trampling conditions, TE T =. aphylla canopy habitat under enclosure conditions, TT T =. aphylla canopy habitat under trampling conditions, CE = C. sempervirens canopy habitat under enclosure conditions, CT = C. sempervirens canopy habitat under trampling conditions.<table><tbody><tr><th>Habitat</th><th>Code</th><th>Treatment</th><th>Tree height (m)</th><th>Tree canopy crown (m2)</th><th>Herbaceous vegetation</th><th>Soil physical/biological top layer</th><th>Litter layer (cm)</th></tr></tbody><tbody><tr><th>Open spaces</th><td>OT OE</td><td>Trampling Enclosure</td><td>- -</td><td>- -</td><td>No +++</td><td>No Physical top layer</td><td>No No</td></tr><tr><th>E. camaldulensis</th><td>ET EE</td><td>Trampling Enclosure</td><td>10-13</td><td>6×8</td><td>No +</td><td>No Biological top layer</td><td>No 2-3</td></tr><tr><th>T. aphylla</th><td>TT TE</td><td>Trampling Enclosure</td><td>14-16</td><td>8×8</td><td>No +++</td><td>No Physical top layer</td><td>No Few</td></tr><tr><th>C. sempervirens</th><td>CT CE</td><td>Trampling Enclosure</td><td>14-16</td><td>7×9</td><td>No +</td><td>No Biological layer</td><td>No 1-2</td></tr></tbody></table>

Table 4 in Changes in a soil microarthropod community in the vicinity of dominant tree species under trampling management at the Safari Zoological Center, Israel

Table 4 Correlation coefficients (Pearson correlation, r) between the abundance of microarthropods, diversity indices of soil Acari, and soil parameters at the Safari Zoological Center, Israel, December 2013. SM = soil moisture, OM = organic matter, pH = soil pH, SEC = soil electrical conductivity, SD = soil density, WHC = water-holding capacity p. <*0.05, ** p <0.01, *** p <0.001.<table><tbody><tr><th>Index</th><th></th><th>SM</th><th>OM</th><th>pH</th><th>SEC</th><th>SD</th><th>WHC</th></tr></tbody><tbody><tr><th></th><td>Acari</td><td>0.349*</td><td>0.068</td><td>-0.198</td><td>-0.506**</td><td>-0.299</td><td>0.571***</td></tr><tr><th>Abundance</th><td>Collembola Other soil arthropods</td><td>0.153 0.202</td><td>0.210 0.098</td><td>-0.486** -0.294</td><td>-0.506** -0.209</td><td>-0.107 -0.065</td><td>0.207 0.245</td></tr><tr><th></th><td>Total microarthropod</td><td>0.292</td><td>0.158</td><td>-0.403*</td><td>-0.574***</td><td>-0.233</td><td>0.445*</td></tr><tr><th>Diversity indices of Acari</th><td>Taxon richness Shannon index Simpson index</td><td>0.253 0.285 -0.006</td><td>0.023 0.032 -0.175</td><td>-0.098 -0.120 0.165</td><td>-0.392* -0.455** 0.240</td><td>-0.316 -0.293 -0.475**</td><td>0.561*** 0.585*** 0.336</td></tr><tr><th></th><td>Evenness index</td><td>0.387*</td><td>0.009</td><td>-0.203</td><td>-0.466**</td><td>-0.411*</td><td>0.739***</td></tr></tbody></table>

opencc-zeroAug 2021View details →

Tree communities and soil properties influence fungal community assembly in neotropical forests

The influence exerted by tree communities, topography and soil chemistry on the assembly of macrofungal communities remains poorly understood, especially in highly diverse tropical forests. Here, we used a large dataset that combines inventories of macrofungal Basidiomycetes fruiting bodies, tree species composition and measurements for 16 soil physico-chemical parameters, collected in 34 plots located in four sites of lowland rainforests in French Guiana. Plots were established on three different topographical conditions: hilltop, slope and seasonally flooded soils. We found hyperdiverse Basidiomycetes communities, mainly comprising members of Agaricales and Polyporales. Phosphorus, clay contents and base saturation in soils strongly varied across plots and shaped the richness and composition of tree communities. The latter composition explained 23% of the variation in the composition of macrofungal communities, probably through high heterogeneity of the litter chemistry and selective effects of biotic interactions. The high local heterogeneity of habitats influenced the distribution of both macrofungi and trees, as a result of diversed local soil hydromorphic conditions associated to contrasting soil chemistry. This first regional study across habitats of French Guiana forests revealed new niches for macrofungi, such as ectomycorrhizal ones, and illustrate how macrofungi inventories are still paramount to can be to understand the processes at work in the tropics.

opencc-zeroMay 2023View details →

Soil fungal communities contribute to the positive diversity-productivity relationship of tree communities under contrasting water availability

Plant diversity has often been linked to increased productivity; however, this apparent diversity-productivity relationship may rely on inter-trophic interactions such as those between plants and soil microbes. Soil fungi can create complementarity between plant species via altered plant resource partitioning, facilitation via fungal networks, or biotic feedbacks, thereby promoting plant diversity-productivity relationships. Furthermore, these relationships are likely to be context-dependent in response to resource availability. We used a biodiversity-ecosystem function experiment with trees exposed to high and low water availability treatments to determine the contribution of soil fungal communities to the diversity-productivity relationship in tree communities. We used amplicon sequencing of soil fungi to assess fungal richness, community composition, and richness of functional guilds. We then applied structural equation modelling to determine relationships between tree diversity, fungal communities, and tree productivity and the role of water availability in these relationships. Tree species richness and functional diversity both increased above-ground tree productivity and influenced soil fungal community composition. Fungal community composition had a direct impact on tree productivity and enhanced net diversity effects on productivity. Therefore, fungal communities mediated a positive, indirect effect of tree richness on productivity. While total fungal richness was not associated with tree diversity, pathogen richness decreased and mycorrhizal richness increased with tree richness. Pathogen and mycorrhizal richness had either no impact or a weak negative effect on productivity. Tree species traits strongly affected fungal communities and these changes promoted productivity. Finally, water availability greatly influenced fungal communities but did not interact with tree diversity to affect productivity; indicating possible resilience of tree communities to altered precipitation regimes and associated changes in fungal communities. Synthesis: Our study highlights the crucial role that fungal communities play in shaping the relationship between tree diversity, traits, and productivity, and resilience to altered water availability.

opencc-zeroJun 2023View details →

Microevolutionary processes in a foundation tree inform macrosystem patterns of community biodiversity and structure

Despite an increased focus on multiscale relationships and interdisciplinary integration, few macroecological studies consider the contribution of genetic-based processes to landscape-scale patterns. We tested the hypothesis that tree genetics, climate, and geography jointly drive continental-scale patterns of community structure, using genome-wide SNP data from a broadly distributed foundation tree species (<a>Populus fremontii</a> S. Watson) and two dependent communities (leaf-modifying arthropods and fungal endophytes) spanning southwestern North America. Four key findings emerged: (1) Tree genetic structure was a significant predictor for both communities; however, the strength of influence was both scale- and community-dependent. (2) Tree genetics was the primary driver for endophytes, explaining 17% of variation in continental-scale community structure, whereas (3) climate was the strongest predictor of arthropod structure (24%). (4) Power to detect tree genotype<a>—</a>community phenotype associations changed with scale of genetic organization, increasing from individuals to populations to ecotypes, emphasizing the need to consider nonstationarity (i.e., changes in the effects of factors on ecological processes across scales) when inferring macrosystem properties. Our findings highlight the role of foundation tree species as drivers of macroscale community structure and provide macrosystems ecology with a theoretical framework for linking fine- and intermediate-scale genetic processes to landscape-scale patterns. Management of genetic diversity harbored within foundation species is a critical consideration for conserving and sustaining regional biodiversity.

opencc-zeroAug 2023View details →

Slow soil enzyme recovery following invasive tree removal through gradual changes in bacterial and fungal communities

Biological invasions of plants have profound effects on ecosystem functioning by directly and indirectly altering soil microbiota, especially when invasive plants co-invade with their associated microbiomes. Ecosystem functions may recover slowly following invader removal, with implications for restoration. We investigated the recovery of soil ecosystem function (measured as soil enzymes) following the removal, at different densities and times, of invasive Pinus spp. in New Zealand, and how different enzymatic activities responded to pine legacies. Enzymatic activities were driven by pine legacies via both abiotic (soil nutrients) and biotic (fungi and bacteria) soil properties, with different enzymes showing distinct patterns. The activity of the enzymes cellobiohydrolase (cellulose degrading), β-glucosidase (cellulose degrading), N-acetyl-glucosaminidase (chitin degrading), laccase (lignin oxidising) and acid phosphatase (organic phosphate hydrolysing) were influenced by time since pine removal and by pine density at removal via effects on biotic communities. In comparison, Mn-peroxidase (lignin oxidising) was positively correlated with density of pines at removal and was negatively correlated with time since removal and was only influenced by fungal communities. Synthesis. The recovery of soil enzymatic function following invasive species removal is slow, and dependent on pine legacies through the gradual changes in fungal and bacterial communities. The cascading effects of these changes suggest potential implications for the success of future plant establishment and restoration of co-invaded ecosystems.

opencc-zeroSep 2023View details →

Phytochemical diversity impacts herbivory in a tropical rainforest tree community

Metabolomics provides an unprecedented window into diverse plant secondary metabolites that represent a potentially critical niche dimension in tropical forests underlying species co-existence. Here, we used untargeted metabolomics to evaluate chemical composition of 358 tree species and its relationship with phylogeny and variation in light environment, soil nutrients, and insect-herbivore leaf damage in a tropical rain forest plot. We report no phylogenetic signal in most compound classes, indicating rapid diversification in tree metabolomes. We found that locally co-occurring species were more chemically dissimilar than random, and that local chemical dispersion and metabolite diversity was associated with lower herbivory, especially that of specialist insect herbivores. Our results highlight the role of secondary metabolites in mediating plant-herbivore interactions and their potential to facilitate niche differentiation in a manner that contributes to species coexistence. Furthermore, our findings suggest that specialist herbivore pressure is an important mechanism promoting phytochemical diversity in tropical forests.

opencc-zeroOct 2023View details →

Data from: Incomplete recovery of tree community composition and rare species after 120 years of tropical forest succession in Panama

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.

opencc-zeroOct 2023View details →

Flooding drives tropical dry forest tree community assembly in southeast Brazil

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). 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). 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 Geofroea spinosa (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.