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. 2014 May;17(5):527-36.
doi: 10.1111/ele.12252. Epub 2014 Mar 3.

Fast demographic traits promote high diversification rates of Amazonian trees

Timothy R Baker  1 , R Toby Pennington, Susana Magallon, Emanuel Gloor, William F Laurance, Miguel Alexiades, Esteban Alvarez, Alejandro Araujo, Eric J M M Arets, Gerardo Aymard, Atila Alves de Oliveira, Iêda Amaral, Luzmila Arroyo, Damien Bonal, Roel J W Brienen, Jerome Chave, Kyle G Dexter, Anthony Di Fiore, Eduardo Eler, Ted R Feldpausch, Leandro Ferreira, Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez, Geertje van der Heijden, Niro Higuchi, Eurídice Honorio, Isau Huamantupa, Tim J Killeen, Susan Laurance, Claudio Leaño, Simon L Lewis, Yadvinder Malhi, Beatriz Schwantes Marimon, Ben Hur Marimon Junior, Abel Monteagudo Mendoza, David Neill, Maria Cristina Peñuela-Mora, Nigel Pitman, Adriana Prieto, Carlos A Quesada, Fredy Ramírez, Hirma Ramírez Angulo, Agustin Rudas, Ademir R Ruschel, Rafael P Salomão, Ana Segalin de Andrade, J Natalino M Silva, Marcos Silveira, Marcelo F Simon, Wilson Spironello, Hans ter Steege, John Terborgh, Marisol Toledo, Armando Torres-Lezama, Rodolfo Vasquez, Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira, Emilio Vilanova, Vincent A Vos, Oliver L Phillips
Affiliations

Fast demographic traits promote high diversification rates of Amazonian trees

Timothy R Baker et al. Ecol Lett. 2014 May.

Abstract

The Amazon rain forest sustains the world's highest tree diversity, but it remains unclear why some clades of trees are hyperdiverse, whereas others are not. Using dated phylogenies, estimates of current species richness and trait and demographic data from a large network of forest plots, we show that fast demographic traits--short turnover times--are associated with high diversification rates across 51 clades of canopy trees. This relationship is robust to assuming that diversification rates are either constant or decline over time, and occurs in a wide range of Neotropical tree lineages. This finding reveals the crucial role of intrinsic, ecological variation among clades for understanding the origin of the remarkable diversity of Amazonian trees and forests.

Keywords: Diversity; generation time; traits; tropical forest; turnover.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Variation in mortality rates for (a) Inga and (b) Virola across 57 plot clusters in South American forests; (c) intrinsic mortality rate (± 95% confidence limits) of 51 clades of tropical tree after accounting for variation among plot clusters.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Alternative predictions of the accumulation of species richness by clades under a constant rate (black) and exponentially declining (blue) model of diversification. Each model shows a distinctive relationship between clade age and species richness. Solid lines show the predictions for the null model for each scenario; dashed lines show possible effect of ecological covariates that either promote or reduce diversification (upper/lower lines respectively).
Figure 3
Figure 3
(a) Relationship between observed species richness (natural log scale) and the initial diversification rate of 51 clades of Neotropical trees estimated with the best-fitting model of diversification (Model 15, Table 1, with a low relative extinction rate: ε = 0). For this model, the initial diversification rate is inversely proportional to the intrinsic turnover time of each clade (denoted by symbol size) and declines exponentially over time (z estimated as 2.50; eqn 6). (b) Relationship between species richness and intrinsic turnover time of trees ≥ 10 cm dbh across 51 clades (log(species richness) = −0.97*log(turnover time)+7.25, F = 9.11, r2  = 0.16).
Figure 4
Figure 4
(a) The cumulative abundance of 51 clades of tropical trees with different intrinsic turnover times, in western (black) and eastern (blue) Amazon forests. (b) The contribution of clades with different intrinsic turnover times to the species richness of forests in western and eastern Amazon forests.
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