Functional Megadiversity. Silman, M. R. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(16):5763–5764, April, 2014. doi abstract bibtex [Excerpt] Western Amazonian and Andean forests have Earth's highest biodiversity and are globally important for ecosystem services and climate regulation. Straddling the planet's longest ecological gradients, they have captured the imagination of scientists since von Humboldt (1). However, ecological studies and theory have incorporated that spectacular biological variation in only the most rudimentary ways, or not at all. It is widely understood that there are many traits that are important to plant performance, consequential not only for things like carbon gain and loss, but also timing of life histories, evolutionary patterns, and interactions with symbionts. In PNAS, Asner et al. (2) focus on one of the best known suites of traits, those comprising the biochemical functions of canopy leaves, on a breathtaking number of species drawn from nearly all major angiosperm clades. The study crosses ecological gradients spanning lowland Amazonian soil fertilities from poor white sands to rich clays, and an altitudinal gradient stretching 3.5 km from the hot lowlands to the frost and ice near the limit of tree growth in the Andes. The authors' findings show that there is immense variability in functional traits found in the canopies of tropical forests: indeed, as much variability in the forests of western South America as was previously known for all tropical forests on the planet. Understanding how tropical tree communities are put together – what determines their diversities and the relative abundances of their members – is a longstanding and contentious issue in ecology. Given the importance of tropical forests in terms of carbon and hydrological cycles, climate regulation, and a vast array of ecosystem services, the question becomes much more acute as we proceed through the Anthropocene. Human-caused changes to tropical forests can alter not only their biodiversity, but also the basic provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural services they provide to humanity.
@article{silmanFunctionalMegadiversity2014,
title = {Functional Megadiversity},
author = {Silman, Miles R.},
year = {2014},
month = apr,
volume = {111},
pages = {5763--5764},
issn = {1091-6490},
doi = {10.1073/pnas.1402618111},
abstract = {[Excerpt] Western Amazonian and Andean forests have Earth's highest biodiversity and are globally important for ecosystem services and climate regulation. Straddling the planet's longest ecological gradients, they have captured the imagination of scientists since von Humboldt (1). However, ecological studies and theory have incorporated that spectacular biological variation in only the most rudimentary ways, or not at all. It is widely understood that there are many traits that are important to plant performance, consequential not only for things like carbon gain and loss, but also timing of life histories, evolutionary patterns, and interactions with symbionts. In PNAS, Asner et al. (2) focus on one of the best known suites of traits, those comprising the biochemical functions of canopy leaves, on a breathtaking number of species drawn from nearly all major angiosperm clades. The study crosses ecological gradients spanning lowland Amazonian soil fertilities from poor white sands to rich clays, and an altitudinal gradient stretching 3.5 km from the hot lowlands to the frost and ice near the limit of tree growth in the Andes. The authors' findings show that there is immense variability in functional traits found in the canopies of tropical forests: indeed, as much variability in the forests of western South America as was previously known for all tropical forests on the planet.
Understanding how tropical tree communities are put together -- what determines their diversities and the relative abundances of their members -- is a longstanding and contentious issue in ecology. Given the importance of tropical forests in terms of carbon and hydrological cycles, climate regulation, and a vast array of ecosystem services, the question becomes much more acute as we proceed through the Anthropocene. Human-caused changes to tropical forests can alter not only their biodiversity, but also the basic provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural services they provide to humanity.},
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences},
keywords = {*imported-from-citeulike-INRMM,~INRMM-MiD:c-13145305,amazonia,ande-region,anthropogenic-impacts,biodiversity,complexity,ecology,ecosystem-services,forest-resources,south-america,tropical-forests},
lccn = {INRMM-MiD:c-13145305},
number = {16}
}
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