Demographic composition, not demographic diversity, predicts biomass and turnover across temperate and tropical forests

Needham JF 1 , Johnson DJ 2 , Anderson-Teixeira KJ 1 , Bourg N 3 , Bunyavejchewin S 4 , Butt N 5 Show all authors , Cao M 6 , Cárdenas D 7 , Chang-Yang CH 8 , Chen YY 9 , Chuyong G 10 , Dattaraja HS 11 , Davies SJ 1 , Duque A 12 , Ewango CEN 13 , Fernando ES 14 , Fisher R 15 , Fletcher CD 16 , Foster R 17 , Hao Z 18 , Hart T 19 , Hsieh CF 20 , Hubbell SP 21 , Itoh A 22 , Kenfack D 1 , Koven CD 23 , Larson AJ 24 , Lutz JA 25 , McShea W 3 , Makana JR 26 , Malhi Y 27 , Marthews T 28 , Bt Mohamad M 29 , Morecroft MD 27 , Norden N 30 , Parker G 31 , Shringi A 11 , Sukumar R 11 , Suresh HS 11 , Fang Sun I 9 , Tan S 29 , Thomas DW 32 , Thompson J 33 , Uriarte M 34 , Valencia R 35 , Yao TL 16 , Yap SL 36 , Yuan Z 37 , Yuehua H 6 , Zimmerman JK 38 , Zuleta D 1 , McMahon SM 1

Affiliations 

  • 1 Forest Global Earth Observatory
  • 2 School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
  • 3 Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, USA
  • 4 Forest Research Office, Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, Chatuchak, Bangkok, 10900, Thailand
  • 5 School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
  • 6 CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, Yunnan, China
  • 7 Herbario Amazónico Colombiana, Instituto Amazónico de Investigaciones Científicas Sinchi, Bogotá, Colombia
  • 8 Department of Biological Sciences, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
  • 9 Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, National Dong Hwa University, Hualien, Taiwan
  • 10 Department of Plant Science, University of Buea, Buea, Camesroon
  • 11 Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
  • 12 Departmento de Ciencias Forestales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín, Medellín, Colombia
  • 13 University of Kisangani, Faculty of Sciences, Department of Plant Ecology & Natural Resources Management, Democratic Republic of Congo
  • 14 Department of Forest Biological Sciences, University of the Philippines, Los Baños, Philippines
  • 15 National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA
  • 16 Forest Research Institute Malaysia, Kepong, 52109, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 17 Department of Botany, Field Museum, Chicago, IL, USA
  • 18 School of Ecology and Environment, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
  • 19 Tshuapa-Lomami-Lualaba Project (TL2), Democratic Republic of Congo
  • 20 Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
  • 21 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
  • 22 Graduate School of Science, Osaka City University, Osaka, Japan
  • 23 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
  • 24 Department of Forest Management, W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA
  • 25 Wildland Resources Department, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, USA
  • 26 Centre de Formation et de Recherche en Conservation Forestière, Democratic Republic of Congo
  • 27 School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
  • 28 UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Wallingford, UK
  • 29 Sarawak Forestry Department, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia
  • 30 Programa de Ciencias Básicas de la Biodiversidad, Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt, Bogotá, Colombia
  • 31 Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD, USA
  • 32 School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Vancouver, WA, USA
  • 33 UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Bush Estate, Penicuik, Midlothian, UK
  • 34 Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
  • 35 Escuela de Ciencias Biológicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador
  • 36 Far Eastern University, Manila, Philippines
  • 37 Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China
  • 38 Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, Puerto, Rico
Glob Chang Biol, 2022 Jan 25.
PMID: 35080088 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16100

Abstract

The growth and survival of individual trees determine the physical structure of a forest with important consequences for forest function. However, given the diversity of tree species and forest biomes, quantifying the multitude of demographic strategies within and across forests and the way that they translate into forest structure and function remains a significant challenge. Here, we quantify the demographic rates of 1,961 tree species from temperate and tropical forests and evaluate how demographic diversity (DD) and demographic composition (DC) differ across forests, and how these differences in demography relate to species richness, aboveground biomass, and carbon residence time. We find wide variation in DD and DC across forest plots, patterns that are not explained by species richness or climate variables alone. There is no evidence that DD has an effect on either aboveground biomass or carbon residence time. Rather, the DC of forests, specifically the relative abundance of large statured species, predicted both biomass and carbon residence time. Our results demonstrate the distinct demographic compositions of globally distributed forests, reflecting biogeography, recent history, and current plot conditions. Linking the demographic composition of forests to resilience or vulnerability to climate change, will improve the precision and accuracy of predictions of future forest composition, structure and function.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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