The Relationship between Local Abundance and Distribution of Rain Forest Trees across Environmental Gradients in India

Davidar, Priya; Rajagopal, B.; Arjunan, M.; Puyravaud, Jean Philippe

doi:10.1111/j.1744-7429.2008.00437.x

Cited by 11 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…The relative success of taller species is in agreement with previous works focused on tropical forests at low elevations (Ruokolainen and Vormisto 2000; Davidar et al 2008;Kristiansen et al 2009). Overall, it seems that greater dispersal abilities associated with potentially higher individuals make the species to perform well at landscape level, which, in turn, could lead to high local abundances.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…In plants, studies have found that plant size is often correlated with species commonness at different scales: (1) At large scales across regions and continents, larger species have been found to be more widely distributed because of their greater dispersal ability (Ruokolainen and Vormisto 2000;Davidar et al 2008;Kristiansen et al 2009). (2) At local scales, large species could also be more abundant, because large plants have an advantage when they compete for light (Wright et al 2007) and tend to have higher reproductive success (Nathan and Muller-Landau 2000;Westoby et al 2002;; Aarssen et al 2006;Wright et al 2007;Kristiansen et al 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Commonness and rarity determinants of woody plants in different types of tropical forests

et al. 2014

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The aim of this work is to examine whether there exists a link between local and landscape patterns of species commonness, and if these are related to morphological traits in tropical plant communities. The Madidi region (Bolivian tropical Andes) is selected as study location. We estimated local and landscape commonness, rarity classes, height, diameter, number of stems, and habit for[2,300 species. We employed correlations to evaluate the relationship between local scale commonness and landscape scale commonness. We performed ANCOVA and multinomial logistic regressions to predict commonness and rarity variables from the morphological traits. We repeated the analyses for six different forest types, including dry forests and wet forests along a 3,477 m elevation gradient. We found a positive relationship between local and landscape commonness in all Communicated by Peter Ashton. forest types. Additionally, we found that, plant height influences the local and landscape commonness, and that the apportioning of species into rarity classes depends greatly on the species habit and, at lesser degree, on the number of stems. Our main conclusions are: (1) Approaches to commonness and rarity based on abundance only or occurrence only could summarize most of the relevant information to characterize commonness and rarity patterns: both approaches, in practice, do not supply independent information. (2) The species traits determine which species are rare and which ones are common, which indicates that commonness and rarity patterns are the result of non-neutral trait-based community assembly processes.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Commonness and rarity determinants of woody plants in different types of tropical forests

et al. 2014

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“…; Macía & Svenning ) and that widespread species show broad environmental tolerances (Davidar et al. ; Slatyer et al. ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Niche breadth of oligarchic species in Amazonian and Andean rain forests

Arellano

Cala

Macía

2014

J Vegetation Science

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Aim To test the niche breadth hypothesis (NBH), which states that dominant species have broader environmental tolerances than rare species, focusing on oligarchic species distributions (1) along the gradients of edaphic and climatic individual variables, and (2) within the n‐dimensional environmental frame defined by all edaphic and climatic variability. Location Amazonian and Andean tropical rain forests along a ca. 3000 m elevation gradient, covering an area of 200 × 200 km in northwestern Bolivia. Methods All woody plants with a DBH ≥2.5 cm were measured in 98 0.1‐ha plots. We analysed 18 chemical properties of the soils in each plot. Climatic and topographic variables were obtained from available open‐access databases. Three measures were calculated for each of the species found at each forest type: (1) regional‐scale dominance based on frequency and local abundance, (2) niche breadth along each of the environmental variables, and (3) total niche size within the whole environment. Results Oligarchic species showed broader niche breadths than the other species that constituted the community assembly in both Amazonian and Andean rain forests. The niche breadth of any species tended to be positively correlated with its degree of dominance. The Amazonian forest showed a stronger oligarchic pattern than the Andean forest, and the Amazonian common species showed larger niches overall. However, this pattern differed for some particular variables: Amazonian oligarchies had narrower niches along the variables related to organic matter and most climatic variables, whereas Andean oligarchies had narrower niches along several micronutrient factors and temperature variables. Conclusions The results provide strong empirical support for the NBH in tropical rain forests. However, different patterns of dominance were found in the two habitats: oligarchic species ranged from narrow‐niched species to very broad generalist species. Broad‐niched oligarchic species have also been reported in other regions, suggesting an important role of niche size linking commonness at different scales. Oligarchic species exhibit relatively narrow niches with respect to soil factors if measured along wide gradients, regardless of the forest type studied. In contrast, the opposite pattern was found for many climatic variables, indicating higher sensitivity to climate in Amazonia compared to the Andes. Despite these differences, Amazonia has much larger total niche sizes for its common species than the Andes overall.

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“…Few have been tested rigorously in the context of Amazonian tree communities. Most researchers have found that common Amazonian species tolerate no broader edaphic or topographic variation than rare species (Phillips et al 2003, Tuomisto et al 2003a, Kinupp and Magnusson 2005see Jones et al 2008 for similar results from Costa Rica, and Davidar et al 2008 for a contrasting result from the Old World). First, we believe that tests to date of the idea that common Amazonian plant species tolerate a broader range of environmental conditions than rare ones (the niche breadth hypothesis of Brown [1984Brown [ , 1995) have not been suffi ciently rigorous to reject the idea.…”

Section: Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Oligarchies in Amazonian tree communities: a ten‐year review

2013

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Th is paper revisits various hypotheses about oligarchic patterns in Amazonian tree communities put forward by Pitman et al. (2001). Together, these hypotheses predict that most lowland sites in the Amazon are located within large patches of relatively homogeneous edaphic and other environmental conditions, where an oligarchy of common, frequent tree species accounts for a majority of trees. To assess the degree to which these hypotheses have been corroborated or refuted over the last ten years, we reviewed Ͼ 200 studies published since 2001. We found overwhelming support for the hypothesis that large-scale oligarchies of common and frequent species are a common feature of Amazonian tree communities. At least 22 studies have documented oligarchies in Amazonian woody plant communities to date, and no studies have looked for oligarchies as defi ned by Pitman et al. (2001) and failed to fi nd them. We argue that six publications that off er critiques of the oligarchy hypothesis do not constitute valid tests. Th e other hypotheses in Pitman et al. (2001) -one regarding the specifi c oligarchic taxa that dominate forests near the eastern base of the Andes and one that attempts to explain why oligarchic species exist -are less well supported by the literature, in large part because they have not been subjected to many tests. We discuss links between these hypotheses and other well-known patterns and hypotheses in ecology (the abundance -occupancy relationship, the Janzen -Connell hypothesis, the niche-environment hypothesis, and the niche breadth hypothesis), and provide additional detail to facilitate rigorous tests in the future. Th e paper concludes by presenting remote sensing evidence that large patches of relatively homogeneous environmental conditions account for most of the upland forest landscape across Amazonian Peru.

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The Relationship between Local Abundance and Distribution of Rain Forest Trees across Environmental Gradients in India

Cited by 11 publications

References 39 publications

Commonness and rarity determinants of woody plants in different types of tropical forests

Commonness and rarity determinants of woody plants in different types of tropical forests

Niche breadth of oligarchic species in Amazonian and Andean rain forests

Oligarchies in Amazonian tree communities: a ten‐year review

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