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Compositional response of Amazon forests to climate change.

ABSTRACT: Most of the planet's diversity is concentrated in the tropics, which includes many regions undergoing rapid climate change. Yet, while climate-induced biodiversity changes are widely documented elsewhere, few studies have addressed this issue for lowland tropical ecosystems. Here we investigate whether the floristic and functional composition of intact lowland Amazonian forests have been changing by evaluating records from 106 long-term inventory plots spanning 30 years. We analyse three traits that have been hypothesized to respond to different environmental drivers (increase in moisture stress and atmospheric CO2 concentrations): maximum tree size, biogeographic water-deficit affiliation and wood density. Tree communities have become increasingly dominated by large-statured taxa, but to date there has been no detectable change in mean wood density or water deficit affiliation at the community level, despite most forest plots having experienced an intensification of the dry season. However, among newly recruited trees, dry-affiliated genera have become more abundant, while the mortality of wet-affiliated genera has increased in those plots where the dry season has intensified most. Thus, a slow shift to a more dry-affiliated Amazonia is underway, with changes in compositional dynamics (recruits and mortality) consistent with climate-change drivers, but yet to significantly impact whole-community composition. The Amazon observational record suggests that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is driving a shift within tree communities to large-statured species and that climate changes to date will impact forest composition, but long generation times of tropical trees mean that biodiversity change is lagging behind climate change.

SUBMITTER: Esquivel-Muelbert A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6334637 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Compositional response of Amazon forests to climate change.

Esquivel-Muelbert Adriane A Baker Timothy R TR Dexter Kyle G KG Lewis Simon L SL Brienen Roel J W RJW Feldpausch Ted R TR Lloyd Jon J Monteagudo-Mendoza Abel A Arroyo Luzmila L Álvarez-Dávila Esteban E Higuchi Niro N Marimon Beatriz S BS Marimon-Junior Ben Hur BH Silveira Marcos M Vilanova Emilio E Gloor Emanuel E Malhi Yadvinder Y Chave Jerôme J Barlow Jos J Bonal Damien D Davila Cardozo Nallaret N Erwin Terry T Fauset Sophie S Hérault Bruno B Laurance Susan S Poorter Lourens L Qie Lan L Stahl Clement C Sullivan Martin J P MJP Ter Steege Hans H Vos Vincent Antoine VA Zuidema Pieter A PA Almeida Everton E Almeida de Oliveira Edmar E Andrade Ana A Vieira Simone Aparecida SA Aragão Luiz L Araujo-Murakami Alejandro A Arets Eric E Aymard C Gerardo A GA Baraloto Christopher C Camargo Plínio Barbosa PB Barroso Jorcely G JG Bongers Frans F Boot Rene R Camargo José Luís JL Castro Wendeson W Chama Moscoso Victor V Comiskey James J Cornejo Valverde Fernando F Lola da Costa Antonio Carlos AC Del Aguila Pasquel Jhon J Di Fiore Anthony A Fernanda Duque Luisa L Elias Fernando F Engel Julien J Flores Llampazo Gerardo G Galbraith David D Herrera Fernández Rafael R Honorio Coronado Eurídice E Hubau Wannes W Jimenez-Rojas Eliana E Lima Adriano José Nogueira AJN Umetsu Ricardo Keichi RK Laurance William W Lopez-Gonzalez Gabriela G Lovejoy Thomas T Aurelio Melo Cruz Omar O Morandi Paulo S PS Neill David D Núñez Vargas Percy P Pallqui Camacho Nadir C NC Parada Gutierrez Alexander A Pardo Guido G Peacock Julie J Peña-Claros Marielos M Peñuela-Mora Maria Cristina MC Petronelli Pascal P Pickavance Georgia C GC Pitman Nigel N Prieto Adriana A Quesada Carlos C Ramírez-Angulo Hirma H Réjou-Méchain Maxime M Restrepo Correa Zorayda Z Roopsind Anand A Rudas Agustín A Salomão Rafael R Silva Natalino N Silva Espejo Javier J Singh James J Stropp Juliana J Terborgh John J Thomas Raquel R Toledo Marisol M Torres-Lezama Armando A Valenzuela Gamarra Luis L van de Meer Peter J PJ van der Heijden Geertje G van der Hout Peter P Vasquez Martinez Rodolfo R Vela Cesar C Vieira Ima Célia Guimarães ICG Phillips Oliver L OL

Global change biology 20181108 1

Most of the planet's diversity is concentrated in the tropics, which includes many regions undergoing rapid climate change. Yet, while climate-induced biodiversity changes are widely documented elsewhere, few studies have addressed this issue for lowland tropical ecosystems. Here we investigate whether the floristic and functional composition of intact lowland Amazonian forests have been changing by evaluating records from 106 long-term inventory plots spanning 30 years. We analyse three traits ...[more]

PMID: 30406962

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Project description:European beech forests growing on marginal calcareous soils have been proposed to be vulnerable to decreased soil water availability. This could result in a large-scale loss of ecological services and economical value in a changing climate. In order to evaluate the potential consequences of this drought-sensitivity, we investigated potential species range shifts for European beech forests on calcareous soil in the 21st century by statistical species range distribution modelling for present day and projected future climate conditions. We found a dramatic decline by 78% until 2080. Still the physiological or biogeochemical mechanisms underlying the drought sensitivity of European beech are largely unknown. Drought sensitivity of beech is commonly attributed to plant physiological constraints. Furthermore, it has also been proposed that reduced soil water availability could promote nitrogen (N) limitation of European beech due to impaired microbial N cycling in soil, but this hypothesis has not yet been tested. Hence we investigated the influence of simulated climate change (increased temperatures, reduced soil water availability) on soil gross microbial N turnover and plant N uptake in the beech-soil interface of a typical mountainous beech forest stocking on calcareous soil in SW Germany. For this purpose, triple 15N isotope labelling of intact beech seedling-soil-microbe systems was combined with a space-for-time climate change experiment. We found that nitrate was the dominant N source for beech natural regeneration. Reduced soil water content caused a persistent decline of ammonia oxidizing bacteria and therefore, a massive attenuation of gross nitrification rates and nitrate availability in the soil. Consequently, nitrate and total N uptake of beech seedlings were strongly reduced so that impaired growth of beech seedlings was observed already after one year of exposure to simulated climatic change. We conclude that the N cycle in this ecosystem and here specifically nitrification is vulnerable to reduced water availability, which can directly lead to nutritional limitations of beech seedlings. This tight link between reduced water availability, drought stress for nitrifiers, decreased gross nitrification rates and nitrate availability and finally nitrate uptake by beech seedlings could represent the Achilles' heel for beech under climate change stresses.

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Compositional response of Amazon forests to climate change.

Publications

Compositional response of Amazon forests to climate change.

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