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The flowering of Atlantic Forest Pleroma trees

ABSTRACT: Mapping the spatial distribution of a plant is a current challenge in ecology. Here, a convolutional neural network (CNN) and 33,798 Sentinel-2 satellite images were used to detect and map forest stands dominated by trees of the genus Pleroma by their magenta-to-deep-purple blossoms in the entire Brazilian Atlantic Forest domain, from June 2016 to July 2020. The Pleroma genus, known for its pioneer behaviour, was detected in an area representing 10.8% of the Atlantic Forest, associated negatively with temperature and positively with elevation, slope, tree cover and precipitation. The detection of another genus by the model, 18% of all the detections contained only pink blooming Handroanthus trees, highlighted that botanical identification from space must be taken with caution, particularly outside the known distribution range of the species. The Pleroma blossom seasonality occurred over a period of ~5–6 months centered on the March equinox and populations with distinct blossom timings were found. Our results indicate that in the Atlantic Forest, the remaining natural forest is less diverse than expected but is at least recovering from degradation. Our study suggests a method to produce ecological-domain scale maps of tree genera and species based on their blossoms that could be used for tree studies and biodiversity assessments.

SUBMITTER: Wagner F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8517022 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Phylobetadiversity is defined as the phylogenetic resemblance between communities or biomes. Analyzing phylobetadiversity patterns among different vegetation physiognomies within a single biome is crucial to understand the historical affinities between them. Based on the widely accepted idea that different forest physiognomies within the Southern Brazilian Atlantic Forest constitute different facies of a single biome, we hypothesize that more recent phylogenetic nodes should drive phylobetadiversity gradients between the different forest types within the Atlantic Forest, as the phylogenetic divergence among those forest types is biogeographically recent. We compiled information from 206 checklists describing the occurrence of shrub/tree species across three different forest physiognomies within the Southern Brazilian Atlantic Forest (Dense, Mixed and Seasonal forests). We analyzed intra-site phylogenetic structure (phylogenetic diversity, net relatedness index and nearest taxon index) and phylobetadiversity between plots located at different forest types, using five different methods differing in sensitivity to either basal or terminal nodes (phylogenetic fuzzy weighting, COMDIST, COMDISTNT, UniFrac and Rao's H). Mixed forests showed higher phylogenetic diversity and overdispersion than the other forest types. Furthermore, all forest types differed from each other in relation phylobetadiversity patterns, particularly when phylobetadiversity methods more sensitive to terminal nodes were employed. Mixed forests tended to show higher phylogenetic differentiation to Dense and Seasonal forests than these latter from each other. The higher phylogenetic diversity and phylobetadiversity levels found in Mixed forests when compared to the others likely result from the biogeographical origin of several taxa occurring in these forests. On one hand, Mixed forests shelter several temperate taxa, like the conifers Araucaria and Podocarpus. On the other hand, tropical groups, like Myrtaceae, are also very representative of this forest type. We point out to the need of more attention to Mixed forests as a conservation target within the Brazilian Atlantic Forest given their high phylogenetic uniqueness.

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The flowering of Atlantic Forest Pleroma trees

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