Importance of topography for tree species habitat distributions in a terra firme forest in the Colombian Amazon

Zuleta, Daniel; Russo, Sabrina E.; Barona, Andrés; Barreto-Silva, J. S.; Cárdenas, Dairon; Castaño, Nicolás; Davies, Stuart J.; Detto, Matteo; Sua, Sonia; Turner, Benjamín L.; Duque, Álvaro

doi:10.1007/s11104-018-3878-0

Cited by 43 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…AM is at ≈93 m a.s.l. within a wet tropical (≈3200 mm rainfall −1 ) terra-firme forest in the Colombian Amazon [45]. Although topographic relief at Amacayacu varies only over 20 m, it is more tightly associated with woody plant distributions than soil chemistry alone or in combination with topography [45].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Species Diversity Associated with Foundation Species in Temperate and Tropical Forests

Ellison

Buckley

Case

et al. 2019

Forests

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Foundation species define and structure ecological communities but are difficult to identify before they are declining. Yet, their defining role in ecosystems suggests they should be a high priority for protection and management while they are still common and abundant. We used comparative analyses of six large forest dynamics plots spanning a temperate-to-tropical gradient in the Western Hemisphere to identify statistical “fingerprints” of potential foundation species based on their size-frequency and abundance-diameter distributions, and their spatial association with five measures of diversity of associated woody plant species. Potential foundation species are outliers from the common “reverse-J” size-frequency distribution, and have negative effects on alpha diversity and positive effects on beta diversity at most spatial lags and directions. Potential foundation species also are more likely in temperate forests, but foundational species groups may occur in tropical forests. As foundation species (or species groups) decline, associated landscape-scale (beta) diversity is likely to decline along with them. Preservation of this component of biodiversity may be the most important consequence of protecting foundation species while they are still common.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Species Diversity Associated with Foundation Species in Temperate and Tropical Forests

Ellison

Buckley

Case

et al. 2019

Forests

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“…1.5 km north of the Amazon River, ranges between 88.5 and 110.9 metres above sea level, and includes a depression that remains swampy in a small portion of the plot for a few months, but not in every year. The swampy area is seasonally flooded due to the interaction of poor drainage of soils at the bottom part of internal valleys, the drainage of streamlets during the wet season, and the high seasonal level of the Amazon Riverꞌs water table (Zuleta et al, ). The 25‐ha plot has been divided in three main topographic habitats: ridges, slopes, and valleys, which represent 25.1%, 30.7%, and 44.2% of the total area, respectively (Zuleta, Duque, Cardenas, Muller‐Landau, & Davies, ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Holocene increases in palm abundances in north‐western Amazonia

Heijink

McMichael

Piperno

et al. 2019

Journal of Biogeography

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Aim In Amazonia, 227 of c. 16,000 tree species account for half the individual trees (termed ‘hyperdominant’ species), and a disproportionate number of these species are palms. Our objectives are to show how and whether palm abundance has changed through the Holocene. Here, we reconstruct a detailed fire and vegetation history from north‐western Amazonia, with a focus on changes in palm abundances, and compare our results with regional data. Location Amacayacu, Colombia. Taxon Amazonian palms. Methods We performed charcoal and phytolith analysis on soil cores, and obtained ages of past fires using 14C dating. We measured charcoal abundances and the relative abundances of phytoliths (silica‐based microfossils) for all samples. We used these data to reconstruct changes in fire and vegetation, and compared these data with the species composition of palms in the modern forest. Results Seven 14C dates from charcoal in three cores provided fire ages ranging from 1630 to 2450 calibrated years before present. Charcoal was absent from one‐third of the cores. Palm phytoliths from genera such as Iriartea, Socratea, and Astrocaryum have increased through time, while genera such as Euterpe, Hyospathe, and Oenocarpus have remained relatively stable and similar to modern levels. Overall, palm abundances were negatively correlated with charcoal measurements. Decorated sphere phytoliths, produced from unknown arboreal taxa were positively correlated with charcoal presence and abundance. Main conclusions Palms have increased at Amacayacu and other forest plots through time, but the increases are largest in north‐western Amazonia. The presence of fire, however, dampens the increase in palms through time. When compared with reconstructions from other Amazon regions, our results suggest that increases in palm abundances in the late Holocene occurred both in the presence and absence of direct pre‐Columbian human influence, and that response was strongest in north‐western Amazonia when human influence was minimal.

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“…Despite this restriction, it is possible to observe a high percentage of species with new leaf buds in both forests even at the height of the end of the dry season, and also the presence of seedlings. This is common in these Amazon/Cerrado transitions, since many tree species of the Amazon forest absorb water deep in the soil (Nepstad et al 1994;1995), maintaining transpiration rates (Carvalheiro and Nepstad 1996), and allowing them to survive long dry spells (Nepstad et al 2002).…”

Section: Soil Moisture and Monodominancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, low soil WHC, coupled with a set of ecological conditions, could be a conceptually attractive factor for favouring monodominance in seasonal and well-drained sites, such as those in concretionary (gravel) or sandy soils frequently found in the Amazonia/Cerrado boundary region. Indeed, species distribution and dominance in many tropical forests is known to be driven by sharp soil moisture variation (Furley 1992;Rodrigues 1992;Walter 1995;Silva-Júnior 1997;Ivanauskas et al 1997;Rodrigues and Shepherd 2000) or even subtle variations throughout the year, as demonstrated by Marimon et al (2003) and Marimon-Junior and Haridasan (2005) in the Amazonia/Cerrado transition region. Tree dominance is also related to drainage patterns (Sampaio et al 2000), which act as a functional pathway (Pinto and Oliveira-Filho 1999) where better soil-moisture conditions between along riparian environments drives the flora distribution (Neiman et al 1993).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, soils that have a lower water retention capacity throughout the soil profile are less capable of supplying water for plants (Nye and Tinker 1977;Caldwell and Richards 1986), which may influence the species distribution in the environment (see Furley and Ratter 1990;Marimon-Junior and Haridasan 2005, Cosme et al 2017, Zuleta et al 2018, including hydrological niche segregation (Brum et al 2018). In these situations, tree species better adapted to water stress in seasonal environments (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Soil water-holding capacity and monodominance in Southern Amazon tropical forests

et al. 2019

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Background and Aims We explored the hypothesis that low soil water-holding capacity is the main factor driving the monodominance of Brosimum rubescens in a monodominant forest in Southern Amazonia. Tropical monodominant forests are rare ecosystems with low diversity and high dominance of a single tree species. The causes of this atypical condition are still poorly understood. Some studies have shown a relationship between monodominance and waterlogging or soil attributes, while others have concluded that edaphic factors have little or no explanatory value, but none has accounted for soil-moisture variation other than waterlogging. This study is the first to explicitly explore how low soil water-holding capacity influences the monodominance of tropical forests. Methods We conducted in situ measurements of vertical soil moisture using electrical resistance collected over one year at 0-5; 35-40 and 75-80 cm depths in a B. rubescens monodominant forest and in an adjacent mixed-species forest in the Amazon-Cerrado transition zone, Brazil. Minimum leaf water potential (min) of the seven most common species, including B. rubescens, and soil waterholding capacity for both forests were determined. Results The vertical soil moisture decay pattern was similar in both forests for all depths. However, the slightly higher water availability in the monodominant forest and min similarity between B. rubescens and nearby mixed forest species indicate that low water-availability does not cause the monodominance. Conclusions We reject the hypothesis that monodominance of B. rubescens is primarily determined by low soil water-holding capacity, reinforcing the idea that monodominance in tropical forests is not determined by a single factor.

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Importance of topography for tree species habitat distributions in a terra firme forest in the Colombian Amazon

Cited by 43 publications

References 74 publications

Species Diversity Associated with Foundation Species in Temperate and Tropical Forests

Species Diversity Associated with Foundation Species in Temperate and Tropical Forests

Holocene increases in palm abundances in north‐western Amazonia

Soil water-holding capacity and monodominance in Southern Amazon tropical forests

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