A framework for the worldwide comparison of tropical woody vegetation types

Blasco, F.; Whitmore, T. C.; Gers, Charles

doi:10.1016/s0006-3207(00)00032-x

Cited by 33 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…One of the main challenges to undertaking vegetation assessments at the global scale lies in harmonizing the many different vegetation classifications that have been developed within different regions. Blasco et al. (2000) provide a comparison of ten regional classification schemes developed for tropical woody vegetation, related to a common framework based on ‘bioclimatic types’.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A global overview of the conservation status of tropical dry forests

Miles

Newton

DeFries

et al. 2006

Journal of Biogeography

1,109

811

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Aim To analyse the conservation status of tropical dry forests at the global scale, by combining a newly developed global distribution map with spatial data describing different threats, and to identify the relative exposure of different forest areas to such threats.Location Global assessment.Methods We present a new global distribution map of tropical dry forest derived from the recently developed MODIS Vegetation Continuous Fields (VCF) product, which depicts percentage tree cover at a resolution of 500 m, combined with previously defined maps of biomes. This distribution map was overlaid with spatial data to estimate the exposure of tropical dry forests to a number of different threats: climate change, habitat fragmentation, fire, human population density and conversion to cropland. The extent of tropical dry forest currently protected was estimated by overlaying the forest map with a global data set of the distribution of protected areas.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A global overview of the conservation status of tropical dry forests

Miles

Newton

DeFries

et al. 2006

Journal of Biogeography

1,109

811

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Temperature and precipitation regimes are also the 'classical' explanations used to explain patterns within forested biomes. Dry season length and differences in soil fertility have commonly formed the basis for classification systems of tropical forest types (Schimper 1898;Holdridge et al 1971, Blasco, Whitmore & Gers 2000. In addition to these classical site descriptors, tropical forests also show pronounced biogeographical differences in wind regimes, differences which may play an important, but largely unexamined, role in driving variation in tree heights (i) across species, on biogeographical or evolutionary scales, or (ii) at smaller spatial scales owing to phenotypic responses within species.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tropical trees in a wind‐exposed island ecosystem: height‐diameter allometry and size at onset of maturity

2015

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Summary1. Tropical tree species adapted to high wind environments might be expected to differ systematically in terms of stem allometry and life-history patterns, as compared with species found in less windy forests. We quantified height-diameter (H-D) allometries and relative size at onset of maturity (RSOM) for rain forest tree and tree fern species native to Dominica, West Indies, an island that experiences some of the highest average wind speeds pantropically.2. H-D allometries for 17 Dominican angiosperm tree species were strongly concave on a log-log scale with asymptotic heights ranging from 9 to 32 m among species, averaging 25 m for canopy trees. H-D allometries for species-pooled data deviated strongly from recorded patterns for other tropical forest trees: asymptotic heights for trees in Dominica were 30-116% lower than those recorded for continental rain forest trees in Australia, South America, Africa and South-East Asia. In a subset of canopy trees sampled in steep, sheltered valleys, heights were 12-26% larger at a given diameter and approached those observed in other tropical regions, suggesting large phenotypic responses of H-D allometries to wind conditions. 3. RSOM (quantified as the ratio of height at onset of reproduction to asymptotic maximum height) for Dominican angiosperm species was highly variable, ranging from 0.23 to 0.89 (mean 0.54), similar to patterns observed in Malaysia and Panama; very low RSOM values were estimated for two tree fern species. Pooling data from Dominica with published values from other tropical forests, we observed a significant negative correlation between RSOM and wood density. 4. Synthesis. Our data suggest that wind regimes are a critical determinant of height-diameter (H-D) allometries of tropical trees at both the local and global scale. Although we found no evidence for a systematic differences in reproductive onset related to wind regime, RSOM was negatively correlated with species' wood density, suggesting that more shade-tolerant tree species show a longer period of gradually increasing reproductive allocation through ontogeny.

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“…campo cerrado and campo sujo in South America; forêt claire and miombo in Africa), to savannas (e.g. campo limpo in South America; Menaut et al (1995); Sampaio (1995); Blasco et al (2000); Lock (2006)). Mediterranean vegetation is often characterized by shrubland (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climatic, ecophysiological, and phenological controls on plant ecohydrological strategies in seasonally dry ecosystems

et al. 2014

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Large areas in the tropics and at mid‐latitudes experience pronounced seasonality and inter‐annual variability in rainfall and hence water availability. Despite the importance of these seasonally dry ecosystems (SDEs) for the global carbon cycling and in providing ecosystem services, a unifying ecohydrological framework to interpret the effects of climatic variability on SDEs is still lacking. A synthesis of existing data about plant functional adaptations in SDEs, covering some 400 species, shows that leaf phenological variations, rather than physiological traits, provide the dominant control on plant‐water‐carbon interactions. Motivated by this result, the combined implications of leaf phenology and climatic variability on plant water use strategies are here explored with a minimalist model of the coupled soil water and plant carbon balances. The analyses are extended to five locations with different hydroclimatic forcing, spanning seasonally dry tropical climates (without temperature seasonality) and Mediterranean climates (exhibiting out of phase seasonal patterns of rainfall and temperature). The most beneficial leaf phenology in terms of carbon uptake depends on the climatic regime: evergreen species are favoured by short dry seasons or access to persistent water stores, whereas high inter‐annual variability of rainy season duration favours the coexistence of multiple drought‐deciduous phenological strategies. We conclude that drought‐deciduousness may provide a competitive advantage in face of predicted declines in rainfall totals, while reduced seasonality and access to deep water stores may favour evergreen species. This article has been contributed to by US Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.

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A framework for the worldwide comparison of tropical woody vegetation types

Cited by 33 publications

References 17 publications

A global overview of the conservation status of tropical dry forests

A global overview of the conservation status of tropical dry forests

Tropical trees in a wind‐exposed island ecosystem: height‐diameter allometry and size at onset of maturity

Climatic, ecophysiological, and phenological controls on plant ecohydrological strategies in seasonally dry ecosystems

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