An international network to monitor the structure, composition and dynamics of Amazonian forests (RAINFOR)

Malhi, Yadvinder; Phillips, Oliver L.; Lloyd, Jon; Baker, Timothy R.; Wright, James; Almeida, Samuel; Arroyo, Luzmila; Frederiksen, T.; Grace, John; Higuchi, Níro; Killeen, Timothy J.; Laurance, William F.; Leaño, Claudio; Lewis, Simon L.; Meir, Patrick; Monteagudo, Abel; Neill, David; Vargas, P. Núñez; Panfil, S.N.; Patiño, S.; Pitman, Nigel C. A.; Quesada, C. A.; Rudas-Ll., Agustín; Salomão, Rafael de Paiva; Saleska, S. R.; Silva, N.; Silveira, Marcos; Sombroek, W.G.; Valencia, Renato; Martínez, Rodolfo Vásquez; Vieira, Ima Célia Guimarães; Vinceti, Barbara

doi:10.1111/j.1654-1103.2002.tb02068.x

Cited by 295 publications

(206 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Western Amazonia is the focus of a major international recensusing effort (RAINFOR: http://www. geog.leeds.ac.uk/projects/rainfor/; Malhi et al 2002), so these data may underestimate the pantropical rate of failure to resample. At the pan-Amazon scale > 60% of 1-ha plots are abandoned: ͧ 270 × 1-ha plots had been inventoried by 1997 (based on a count of ͧ 204 plots inventoried and published by 1998, ter Steege pers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Third, there are no data available from less popular methods to compare with these leading protocols. Finally, floristic samples of ͧ 1 ha are suited to a variety of additional purposes such as monitoring forest dynamics, as well as phenological and ethnobotanical research (Condit 1998, Dallmeier & Comiskey 1998aMalhi et al 2002, Phillips et al 1998, 2002a, which usually involve conversion to permanent plots by tagging, mapping and regular recensusing. However the 1-ha protocol is widely used in ecological research without becoming a site for long-term study, and many plots are in practice abandoned after yielding only inventory data.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Efficient plot-based floristic assessment of tropical forests

Martínez²,

et al. 2003

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Abstract:The tropical flora remains chronically understudied and the lack of floristic understanding hampers ecological research and its application for large-scale conservation planning. Given scarce resources and the scale of the challenge there is a need to maximize the efficiency of both sampling strategies and sampling units, yet there is little information on the relative efficiency of different approaches to floristic assessment in tropical forests. This paper is the first attempt to address this gap. We repeatedly sampled forests in two regions of Amazonia using the two most widely used plotbased protocols of floristic sampling, and compared their performance in terms of the quantity of floristic knowledge and ecological insight gained scaled to the field effort required. Specifically, the methods are assessed first in terms of the number of person-days required to complete each sample ('effort'), secondly by the total gain in the quantity of floristic information that each unit of effort provides ('crude inventory efficiency'), and thirdly in terms of the floristic information gained as a proportion of the target species pool ('proportional inventory efficiency'). Finally, we compare the methods in terms of their efficiency in identifying different ecological patterns within the data ('ecological efficiency') while controlling for effort. There are large and consistent differences in the performance of the two methods. The disparity is maintained even after accounting for regional and site-level variation in forest species richness, tree density and the number of field assistants. We interpret our results in the context of selecting the appropriate method for particular research purposes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficient plot-based floristic assessment of tropical forests

Martínez²,

et al. 2003

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“…In the tropics, water availability is one of the most important environmental drivers of forest structure, function and dynamics (Malhi et al 2002, Murphy & Lugo 1986, Toledo et al 2011b). Water availability is determined by the amount and seasonal distribution of rainfall, and the water-retention capacity of soils.…”

Section: Environmental Effects On Forest Structure and Treesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, canopy height tends to be higher in wetter and less seasonal forests, but tends to be independent of soil fertility (Ashton & Hall 1992, Swaine et al 1990. Stem density and basal area of trees tend to be higher with a shorter dry season (Losos et al 2004, Malhi et al 2002. A comparison of four Neotropical lowland forests showed that stem density and basal area tended to be higher on less fertile soils while richer soils were characterized by a low tree but high palm density (DeWalt & Chave 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several factors have been proposed to be strong drivers of forest structure in tropical regions, climate and soil being the most important ones (Clark & Clark 2000, Malhi et al 2002, Murphy & Lugo 1986. For example, canopy height tends to be higher in wetter and less seasonal forests, but tends to be independent of soil fertility (Ashton & Hall 1992, Swaine et al 1990.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Climate and soil drive forest structure in Bolivian lowland forests

et al. 2011

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Abstract:Climate is one of the most important factors determining variation in forest structure, but whether soils have independent effects is less clear. We evaluate how climate and soil independently affect forest structure, using 89 200 stems ≥ 10 cm dbh from 220 1-ha permanent plots distributed along environmental gradients in lowland Bolivia. Fifteen forest structural variables, related to vertical structure (forest height and layering), horizontal structure (basal area, median and the 99th percentile of the stem diameter and size-class distribution) and density of life forms (tree, palm and liana), were evaluated. Environmental variables were summarized in four multivariate axes, related to rainfall, temperature, soil fertility and soil texture. Multiple regression indicates that all structural variables were affected by one or more of the environmental axes, but the explained variation was generally low (median R 2 = 0.15). Rainfall and soil texture affected most forest structural variables (respectively 87% and 80%) and had qualitatively similar effects. This suggests that plant water availability, as determined by rainfall and soil water retention capacity, is the strongest driver of forest structure, whereas soil fertility was a weaker driver of forest structure, affecting 53% of the variables. Maximum forest height, palm density, total basal area and liana infestation showed the strongest responses to environmental variation (with R 2 ranging from 0.31-0.82). Forest height, palm density and total basal area increased with plant water availability, while liana infestation decreased with plant water availability. Therefore, multiple rather than single environmental factors must be used to explain the structure of tropical forests.

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Recent Amazon climate as background for possible ongoing and future changes of Amazon humid forests

Gloor

Barichivich

Ziv

et al. 2015

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

125

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Recent analyses of Amazon runoff and gridded precipitation data suggest an intensification of the hydrological cycle over the past few decades in the following sense: wet season precipitation and peak river runoff (since ∼1980) as well as annual mean precipitation (since ∼1990) have increased, while dry season precipitation and minimum runoff have slightly decreased. There has also been an increase in the frequency of anomalously severe floods and droughts. To provide context for the special issue on Amazonia and its forests in a warming climate we expand here on these analyses. The contrasting recent changes in wet and dry season precipitation have continued and are generally consistent with changes in catchment-level peak and minimum river runoff as well as a positive trend of water vapor inflow into the basin. Consistent with the river records, the increased vapor inflow is concentrated to the wet season. Temperature has been rising by 0.7 ∘ C since 1980 with more pronounced warming during dry months. Suggestions for the cause of the observed changes of the hydrological cycle come from patterns in tropical sea surface temperatures (SSTs). Tropical and North Atlantic SSTs have increased rapidly and steadily since 1990, while Pacific SSTs have shifted during the 1990s from a positive Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) phase with warm eastern Pacific temperatures to a negative phase with cold eastern Pacific temperatures. These SST conditions have been shown to be associated with an increase in precipitation over most of the Amazon except the south and southwest. If ongoing changes continue, we expect forests to continue to thrive in those regions where there is an increase in precipitation with the exception of floodplain forests. An increase in flood pulse height and duration could lead to increased mortality at higher levels of the floodplain and, over the long term, to a lateral shift of the zonally stratified floodplain forest communities. Negative effects on forests are mainly expected in the southwest and south, which have become slightly drier and hotter, consistent with tree mortality trends observed at the RAINFOR Amazon forest plot network established in the early 1980s consisting of approximately 150 regularly censused 1ha plots in intact forests located across the whole basin.

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An international network to monitor the structure, composition and dynamics of Amazonian forests (RAINFOR)

Cited by 295 publications

References 20 publications

Efficient plot-based floristic assessment of tropical forests

Efficient plot-based floristic assessment of tropical forests

Climate and soil drive forest structure in Bolivian lowland forests

Recent Amazon climate as background for possible ongoing and future changes of Amazon humid forests

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