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. 2019 Sep 25;9(1):13822.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-50323-9.

Rarity of monodominance in hyperdiverse Amazonian forests

Hans Ter Steege  1   2 , Terry W Henkel  3 , Nora Helal  4 , Beatriz S Marimon  5 , Ben Hur Marimon-Junior  5 , Andreas Huth  6 , Jürgen Groeneveld  6   7 , Daniel Sabatier  8 , Luiz de Souza Coelho  9 , Diogenes de Andrade Lima Filho  9 , Rafael P Salomão  10   11 , Iêda Leão Amaral  9 , Francisca Dionízia de Almeida Matos  9 , Carolina V Castilho  12 , Oliver L Phillips  13 , Juan Ernesto Guevara  14   15 , Marcelo de Jesus Veiga Carim  16 , Dairon Cárdenas López  17 , William E Magnusson  18 , Florian Wittmann  19   20 , Mariana Victória Irume  9 , Maria Pires Martins  9 , José Renan da Silva Guimarães  16 , Jean-François Molino  8 , Olaf S Bánki  21 , Maria Teresa Fernandez Piedade  22 , Nigel C A Pitman  23 , Abel Monteagudo Mendoza  24 , José Ferreira Ramos  9 , Bruno Garcia Luize  25 , Evlyn Márcia Moraes de Leão Novo  26 , Percy Núñez Vargas  27 , Thiago Sanna Freire Silva  28 , Eduardo Martins Venticinque  29 , Angelo Gilberto Manzatto  30 , Neidiane Farias Costa Reis  31 , John Terborgh  32   33 , Katia Regina Casula  31 , Euridice N Honorio Coronado  13   34 , Juan Carlos Montero  9   35 , Ted R Feldpausch  13   36 , Alvaro Duque  37 , Flávia R C Costa  9 , Nicolás Castaño Arboleda  17 , Jochen Schöngart  22 , Timothy J Killeen  38 , Rodolfo Vasquez  24 , Bonifacio Mostacedo  39 , Layon O Demarchi  22 , Rafael L Assis  40 , Chris Baraloto  41 , Julien Engel  8   41 , Pascal Petronelli  42 , Hernán Castellanos  43 , Marcelo Brilhante de Medeiros  44 , Adriano Quaresma  22 , Marcelo Fragomeni Simon  44 , Ana Andrade  45 , José Luís Camargo  45 , Susan G W Laurance  33 , William F Laurance  33 , Lorena M Rincón  9 , Juliana Schietti  9 , Thaiane R Sousa  9 , Emanuelle de Sousa Farias  46   47 , Maria Aparecida Lopes  48 , José Leonardo Lima Magalhães  49   50 , Henrique Eduardo Mendonça Nascimento  9 , Helder Lima de Queiroz  51 , Gerardo A Aymard C  52 , Roel Brienen  13 , Juan David Cardenas Revilla  9 , Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira  11 , Bruno Barçante Ladvocat Cintra  13   22 , Pablo R Stevenson  53 , Yuri Oliveira Feitosa  54 , Joost F Duivenvoorden  55 , Hugo F Mogollón  56 , Alejandro Araujo-Murakami  57 , Leandro Valle Ferreira  11 , José Rafael Lozada  58 , James A Comiskey  59   60 , José Julio de Toledo  61 , Gabriel Damasco  62 , Nállarett Dávila  63 , Freddie Draper  41   64 , Roosevelt García-Villacorta  65   66 , Aline Lopes  22   67 , Alberto Vicentini  18 , Alfonso Alonso  60 , Francisco Dallmeier  60 , Vitor H F Gomes  11   68 , Jon Lloyd  69 , David Neill  70 , Daniel Praia Portela de Aguiar  22 , Luzmila Arroyo  57 , Fernanda Antunes Carvalho  18   71 , Fernanda Coelho de Souza  13   18 , Dário Dantas do Amaral  11 , Kenneth J Feeley  72   73 , Rogerio Gribel  74 , Marcelo Petratti Pansonato  9   75 , Jos Barlow  76 , Erika Berenguer  77 , Joice Ferreira  50 , Paul V A Fine  62 , Marcelino Carneiro Guedes  78 , Eliana M Jimenez  79 , Juan Carlos Licona  35 , Maria Cristina Peñuela Mora  80 , Boris Villa  22 , Carlos Cerón  81 , Paul Maas  82 , Marcos Silveira  83 , Juliana Stropp  84 , Raquel Thomas  85 , Tim R Baker  13 , Doug Daly  86 , Kyle G Dexter  66   87 , Isau Huamantupa-Chuquimaco  27 , William Milliken  88 , Toby Pennington  36   66 , Marcos Ríos Paredes  89 , Alfredo Fuentes  90   91 , Bente Klitgaard  92 , José Luis Marcelo Pena  93 , Carlos A Peres  94 , Miles R Silman  95 , J Sebastián Tello  91 , Jerome Chave  96 , Fernando Cornejo Valverde  97 , Anthony Di Fiore  98 , Renato Richard Hilário  61 , Juan Fernando Phillips  99 , Gonzalo Rivas-Torres  100   101 , Tinde R van Andel  4 , Patricio von Hildebrand  102 , Janaína Costa Noronha  103 , Edelcilio Marques Barbosa  9 , Flávia Rodrigues Barbosa  103 , Luiz Carlos de Matos Bonates  9 , Rainiellen de Sá Carpanedo  103 , Hilda Paulette Dávila Doza  89 , Émile Fonty  8   104 , Ricardo GómeZárate Z  105 , Therany Gonzales  106 , George Pepe Gallardo Gonzales  89 , Bruce Hoffman  107 , André Braga Junqueira  108 , Yadvinder Malhi  109 , Ires Paula de Andrade Miranda  9 , Linder Felipe Mozombite Pinto  89 , Adriana Prieto  110 , Domingos de Jesus Rodrigues  103 , Agustín Rudas  110 , Ademir R Ruschel  50 , Natalino Silva  111 , César I A Vela  112 , Vincent Antoine Vos  113 , Egleé L Zent  114 , Stanford Zent  114 , Bianca Weiss Albuquerque  22 , Angela Cano  53   115 , Yrma Andreina Carrero Márquez  58 , Diego F Correa  53   116 , Janaina Barbosa Pedrosa Costa  78 , Bernardo Monteiro Flores  117 , David Galbraith  13 , Milena Holmgren  118 , Michelle Kalamandeen  13 , Marcelo Trindade Nascimento  119 , Alexandre A Oliveira  75 , Hirma Ramirez-Angulo  120 , Maira Rocha  22 , Veridiana Vizoni Scudeller  121 , Rodrigo Sierra  122 , Milton Tirado  122 , Maria Natalia Umaña Medina  53   123 , Geertje van der Heijden  124 , Emilio Vilanova Torre  120   125 , Corine Vriesendorp  23 , Ophelia Wang  126 , Kenneth R Young  127 , Manuel Augusto Ahuite Reategui  128 , Cláudia Baider  75   129 , Henrik Balslev  130 , Sasha Cárdenas  53 , Luisa Fernanda Casas  53 , William Farfan-Rios  95 , Cid Ferreira  9 , Reynaldo Linares-Palomino  60 , Casimiro Mendoza  131   132 , Italo Mesones  62 , Armando Torres-Lezama  120 , Ligia Estela Urrego Giraldo  37 , Daniel Villarroel  57 , Roderick Zagt  133 , Miguel N Alexiades  134 , Edmar Almeida de Oliveira  5 , Karina Garcia-Cabrera  95 , Lionel Hernandez  43 , Walter Palacios Cuenca  135 , Susamar Pansini  31 , Daniela Pauletto  136 , Freddy Ramirez Arevalo  137 , Adeilza Felipe Sampaio  31 , Elvis H Valderrama Sandoval  137   138 , Luis Valenzuela Gamarra  24 , Aurora Levesley  13 , Georgia Pickavance  13 , Karina Melgaço  13
Affiliations

Rarity of monodominance in hyperdiverse Amazonian forests

Hans Ter Steege et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Tropical forests are known for their high diversity. Yet, forest patches do occur in the tropics where a single tree species is dominant. Such "monodominant" forests are known from all of the main tropical regions. For Amazonia, we sampled the occurrence of monodominance in a massive, basin-wide database of forest-inventory plots from the Amazon Tree Diversity Network (ATDN). Utilizing a simple defining metric of at least half of the trees ≥ 10 cm diameter belonging to one species, we found only a few occurrences of monodominance in Amazonia, and the phenomenon was not significantly linked to previously hypothesized life history traits such wood density, seed mass, ectomycorrhizal associations, or Rhizobium nodulation. In our analysis, coppicing (the formation of sprouts at the base of the tree or on roots) was the only trait significantly linked to monodominance. While at specific locales coppicing or ectomycorrhizal associations may confer a considerable advantage to a tree species and lead to its monodominance, very few species have these traits. Mining of the ATDN dataset suggests that monodominance is quite rare in Amazonia, and may be linked primarily to edaphic factors.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A) Dominance at plot level (= relative abundance of the most abundant species of each plot) of 1946 inventory plots in Amazonia. Plots are ranked in order from high to low dominance. (B) Maximum relative abundance for each species (5029 species) found in 1946 inventory plots in Amazonia. Species are ranked from high to low maximum abundance. In each graph the red lines indicate 20 and 50% dominance.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Dominance (= relative abundance of the most abundant species of each plot) by plot as a function of the percentage of pioneer trees in the plot. Lower red: Quantile regression line that separates the lower 10% from the upper 90% of the data (tau = 0.1, p = 0.34, i.e. slope not different from 0); middle red: quantile regression (tau = 0.5, p ≪ 0.001); upper red: quantile regression that separates the upper 10% of the data from the lower 90% (tau = 0.9, p = 0.035); black horizontal line: line of 50% dominance.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Dominance (= relative abundance of the most abundant species of each plot) at plot level as a function of community weighted wood density (A) and community weighted seed mass class (B). Red lines show a loess regression through the data.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Percentage of trees belonging to potential ectomycorrhizal genera as a function of forest type (A) and region (B).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Percentage of dominance by plot (= relative abundance of the most abundant species of each plot) as a function of forest type (A) and region (B).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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