Made available in DSpace on 2021-06-25T11:16:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2021-01-01; Agence Nationale Des Parcs Nationaux; Centre for International Forestry Research; Departamento Administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (COLCIENCIAS); David and Lucile Packard Foundation; European Space Agency; Leverhulme Trust; Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa ...
The sensitivity of tropical forest carbon to climate is a key uncertainty in predicting global climate change. Although short-term drying and warming are known to affect forests, it is unknown if such effects translate into long-term responses. Here, we analyze 590 permanent plots measured across the tropics to derive the equilibrium climate controls on forest carbon. Maximum temperature is the most important p...
Successional gradients are ubiquitous in nature, yet few studies have systematically examined the evolutionary origins of taxa that specialize at different successional stages. Here we quantify successional habitat specialization in Neotropical forest trees and evaluate its evolutionary lability along a precipitation gradient. Theoretically, successional habitat specialization should be more evolutionarily cons...
Aims: The extent and persistence of pre-Columbian human legacies in old-growth Amazonian forests are still controversial, partly because modern societies re-occupied old settlements, challenging the distinction between pre- and post-Columbian legacies. Here, we compared the effects of pre-Columbian vs. recent landscape domestication processes on soils and vegetation in two Amazonian regions. Methods: We studied...
McMichael et al. state that we overlooked the effects of post-Columbian human activities in shaping current floristic patterns in Amazonian forests. We formally show that post- Columbian human influences on Amazonian forests are indeed important, but they have played a smaller role when compared to the persistent effects of pre-Columbian human activities on current forest composition..
Questions: Secondary succession in the tropics can follow alternative pathways. Land-use history is known to engender alternative successional communities, but the underlying mechanisms driving and sustaining divergence remain unclear. In this study we aim to answer the following questions: (1) does previous land use act as a filter for species composition in secondary forests; and (2) what are the relative rol...
Old-growth tropical forests harbor an immense diversity of tree species but are rapidly being cleared, while secondary forests that regrow on abandoned agricultural lands increase in extent. We assess how tree species richness and composition recover during secondary succession across gradients in environmental conditions and anthropogenic disturbance in an unprecedented multisite analysis for the Neotropics. S...
In this Letter, the middle initial of author G. J. Nabuurs was omitted, and he should have been associated with an additional affiliation: ‘Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands’ (now added as affiliation 182). In addition, the following two statements have been added to the Supplementary Acknowledgements. (1): ‘We would particularly like to ...
Shifting cultivation is the main land-use system transforming landscapes in riverine Amazonia. Increased concentration of the human population around villages and increasing market integration during the last decades may be causing agricultural intensification. Studies have shown that agricultural intensification, i.e. higher number of swidden-fallow cycles and shorter fallow periods, reduces crop productivity ...