Dominance and Distribution of Tree Species in Upper Amazonian Terra Firme Forests

Pitman, Nigel C. A.; Terborgh, John; Silman, Miles R.; V., Percy Nunez; Neill, David; Cerón, Carlos; Palacios, Walter A.; Aulestia, Milton

doi:10.2307/2680219

Cited by 190 publications

(396 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Dominance was considered by many ecologists to be a feature of temperate rather than tropical forests, but a study by Pitman et al (2001) documented that a predictable subset of the larger trees in a forest plot were much more abundant than randomness predicts. In a comparison of Peruvian and Ecuadorian terra firme forests on similar soil types.…”

Section: Three Forest Recordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Amazonian paleoecological histories: one hill, three watersheds

Bush

Oliveira

Colinvaux

et al. 2004

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

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Data from the Hill of Six Lakes, in the northwestern Brazilian Amazon region, provide three records of paleoclimatic and vegetation change in lowland Amazonia that span the last 170,000 years. Three lakes, Verde, Pata and Dragäo, which occupy separate watersheds on the hill, provide the most detailed image yet obtained of ice-age conditions in lowland Amazonia. Welldated sedimentary records for fossil palynological, charcoal, cation, and pigment, data are presented.The data indicate the continuous presence of mesic forest throughout the last ice age. Oscillations of lake level are recorded and the lowstands are attributed to reduced precipitation inputs to systems delicately balanced between water loss (leakage through the floor of the basin) and gain (precipitation). Gross stratigraphy, algal remains, and paleochemistry suggest that the stands of high and low lake level were cyclic, apparently correlating precessional orbital variation. Times of lake lowstand coincide with wet season (December-January-February, DJF) insolation minima. The strongest of eight lowstand cycles occurred ca. 35,000 to 27,000 cal BP.Even during lowstand episodes, pollen is well preserved and provides a clear signal of uninterrupted forest cover. The principal lowland elements are continuously present in the record, suggesting the long-term (Quaternary) availability of the lowland forest biome in this region. However, during the late Pleistocene the forest changed in composition with the expansion or invasion of montane floral elements creating communities of the mesic forest biome without modem analogs. While precipitation cycles were causing lake levels to rise and fall, the principal influence on vegetation appears to have been cooling. In the late Pleistocene, the population expansion of montane elements at lower elevations is consistent with a cooling of 4-5 °C.

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Section: Three Forest Recordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Amazonian paleoecological histories: one hill, three watersheds

Bush

Oliveira

Colinvaux

et al. 2004

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

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“…Species overlap -the number of species common to both regions divided by the total number of species-was 9.5%. Studies of Amazonian trees over comparable distances in Peru and Ecuador have indicated greater species overlap-66% (Pitman et al 1999), 33% (Pitman et al 2001), and 19-20% . Seasonality and climate differences have been suggested as causes of high beta-diversity in other tropical forests (Davidar et al 2007), but our sites in Brazil and Ecuador were very similar in both factors.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dung beetle communities: a neotropical-north temperate comparison

Radtke¹,

Fonseca²,

Williamson³

2010

Neotrop. entomol.

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-Dung beetle communities have been compared across north temperate latitudes. Tropical dung beetle communities appear to be more diverse based on studies using different methodologies. Here, we present results from a standardized sampling protocol used to compare dung beetle communities across five neotropical forests in Brazil and Ecuador and two warm, north temperate forests in Mississippi and Louisiana. Species richness in the tropical forests was three to seven times higher than the temperate forests, as would be expected by studies of other taxa across tropical and temperate latitudes. Average body size in the temperate forests was larger than the tropical forests, as predicted by Bergmann's rule. Dung beetle abundance and volume per trap-day were generally higher in Ecuador than Brazil, and higher in Mississippi than Louisiana, but there were no tropical-temperate differences. Species rank-abundance curves were similar within countries and between countries. Rank-volume distributions indicated a smaller range of beetle body sizes in Ecuador versus Brazil or the USA. Community similarity was high within countries and low between countries. Community differences between Brazil and Ecuador sites may be explained by differences in productivity based on geological age of the soils.

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“…The environmental model has provided consistently better predictive power for Amazonian ferns structure than for trees and palms (Ruokolainen et al 1997, Pitman et al 2001, Potts et al 2002, Tuomisto et al 2003a, b, c, Phillips et al 2003, Vormisto et al 2004. It is reasonable to associate such a result to the fact that ferns are plants which present variable taxon specific establishment success.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Different slopes of a mountain can determine the structure of ferns and lycophytes communities in a tropical forest of Brazil

Nettesheim

Damasceno

Sylvestre

2014

An. Acad. Bras. Ciênc.

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A community of Ferns and Lycophytes was investigated by comparing the occurrence of species on different slopes of a paleoisland in Southeastern Brazil. Our goal was to evaluate the hypothesis that slopes with different geographic orientations determine a differentiation of Atlantic Forest ferns and lycophytes community. We recorded these plants at slopes turned towards the continent and at slopes turned towards the open sea. Analysis consisted of a preliminary assessment on fern beta diversity, a Non Metric Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS) and a Student t-test to confirm if sites sampling units ordination was different at each axis. We further used the Pearson coefficient to relate fern species to the differentiation pattern and again Student's t-test to determine if richness, plant cover and abundance varied between the two sites. There was a relatively low number of shared species between the two sites and ferns and lycophytes community variation was confirmed. Some species were detected as indicators of the community variation but we were unable to detect richness, plant cover or abundance differences. Despite the evidence of this variation between the slopes, further works are needed to evaluate which processes are contributing to determine this pattern.

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Dominance and Distribution of Tree Species in Upper Amazonian Terra Firme Forests

Cited by 190 publications

References 22 publications

Amazonian paleoecological histories: one hill, three watersheds

Amazonian paleoecological histories: one hill, three watersheds

Dung beetle communities: a neotropical-north temperate comparison

Different slopes of a mountain can determine the structure of ferns and lycophytes communities in a tropical forest of Brazil

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