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. 2023 Feb 17;13(1):2859.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-28132-y.

Unraveling Amazon tree community assembly using Maximum Information Entropy: a quantitative analysis of tropical forest ecology

Edwin Pos  1   2 , Luiz de Souza Coelho  3 , Diogenes de Andrade Lima Filho  3 , Rafael P Salomão  4   5 , Iêda Leão Amaral  3 , Francisca Dionízia de Almeida Matos  3 , Carolina V Castilho  6 , Oliver L Phillips  7 , Juan Ernesto Guevara  8   9 , Marcelo de Jesus Veiga Carim  10 , Dairon Cárdenas López  11 , William E Magnusson  12 , Florian Wittmann  13   14 , Mariana Victória Irume  3 , Maria Pires Martins  3 , Daniel Sabatier  15 , José Renan da Silva Guimarães  10 , Jean-François Molino  15 , Olaf S Bánki  16 , Maria Teresa Fernandez Piedade  17 , Nigel C A Pitman  18 , Abel Monteagudo Mendoza  19 , José Ferreira Ramos  3 , Joseph E Hawes  20 , Everton José Almeida  21 , Luciane Ferreira Barbosa  21 , Larissa Cavalheiro  21 , Márcia Cléia Vilela Dos Santos  21 , Bruno Garcia Luize  22 , Evlyn Márcia Moraes de Leão Novo  23 , Percy Núñez Vargas  24 , Thiago Sanna Freire Silva  25 , Eduardo Martins Venticinque  26 , Angelo Gilberto Manzatto  27 , Neidiane Farias Costa Reis  28 , John Terborgh  29   30 , Katia Regina Casula  28 , Euridice N Honorio Coronado  7   31 , Juan Carlos Montero  3   32 , Beatriz S Marimon  33 , Ben Hur Marimon-Junior  33 , Ted R Feldpausch  7   34 , Alvaro Duque  35 , Chris Baraloto  36 , Nicolás Castaño Arboleda  11 , Julien Engel  15   36 , Pascal Petronelli  37 , Charles Eugene Zartman  3 , Timothy J Killeen  38 , Rodolfo Vasquez  19 , Bonifacio Mostacedo  39 , Rafael L Assis  40 , Jochen Schöngart  17 , Hernán Castellanos  41 , Marcelo Brilhante de Medeiros  42 , Marcelo Fragomeni Simon  42 , Ana Andrade  43 , José Luís Camargo  43 , Layon O Demarchi  17 , William F Laurance  30 , Susan G W Laurance  30 , Emanuelle de Sousa Farias  44   45 , Maria Aparecida Lopes  46 , José Leonardo Lima Magalhães  47   48 , Henrique Eduardo Mendonça Nascimento  3 , Helder Lima de Queiroz  49 , Gerardo A C Aymard  50 , Roel Brienen  7 , Juan David Cardenas Revilla  3 , Flávia R C Costa  3 , Adriano Quaresma  17 , Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira  5 , Bruno Barçante Ladvocat Cintra  51 , Pablo R Stevenson  52 , Yuri Oliveira Feitosa  53 , Joost F Duivenvoorden  54 , Hugo F Mogollón  55 , Leandro Valle Ferreira  5 , James A Comiskey  56   57 , Freddie Draper  36   58 , José Julio de Toledo  59 , Gabriel Damasco  60 , Nállarett Dávila  61 , Roosevelt García-Villacorta  62   63 , Aline Lopes  17   64 , Alberto Vicentini  12 , Janaína Costa Noronha  65 , Flávia Rodrigues Barbosa  65 , Rainiellen de Sá Carpanedo  65 , Thaise Emilio  12   66 , Carolina Levis  67   68 , Domingos de Jesus Rodrigues  65 , Juliana Schietti  3 , Priscila Souza  3 , Alfonso Alonso  57 , Francisco Dallmeier  57 , Vitor H F Gomes  69   70 , Jon Lloyd  71 , David Neill  72 , Daniel Praia Portela de Aguiar  17 , Alejandro Araujo-Murakami  73 , Luzmila Arroyo  73 , Fernanda Antunes Carvalho  12   74 , Fernanda Coelho de Souza  7   12 , Dário Dantas do Amaral  5 , Kenneth J Feeley  75   76 , Rogerio Gribel  3 , Marcelo Petratti Pansonato  3   77 , Jos Barlow  78 , Erika Berenguer  78   79 , Joice Ferreira  48 , Paul V A Fine  60 , Marcelino Carneiro Guedes  80 , Eliana M Jimenez  81 , Juan Carlos Licona  32 , Maria Cristina Peñuela Mora  82 , Carlos A Peres  83 , Boris Eduardo Villa Zegarra  84 , Carlos Cerón  85 , Terry W Henkel  86 , Paul Maas  16 , Marcos Silveira  87 , Juliana Stropp  88 , Raquel Thomas-Caesar  89 , Tim R Baker  7 , Doug Daly  90 , Kyle G Dexter  91   92 , John Ethan Householder  13 , Isau Huamantupa-Chuquimaco  24 , Toby Pennington  34   92 , Marcos Ríos Paredes  93 , Alfredo Fuentes  94   95 , José Luis Marcelo Pena  96 , Miles R Silman  97 , J Sebastián Tello  95 , Jerome Chave  98 , Fernando Cornejo Valverde  99 , Anthony Di Fiore  100 , Renato Richard Hilário  59 , Juan Fernando Phillips  101 , Gonzalo Rivas-Torres  102   103 , Tinde R van Andel  16   104 , Patricio von Hildebrand  105 , Edelcilio Marques Barbosa  3 , Luiz Carlos de Matos Bonates  3 , Hilda Paulette Dávila Doza  93 , Émile Fonty  15   106 , Ricardo Zárate Gómez  107 , Therany Gonzales  108 , George Pepe Gallardo Gonzales  93 , Jean-Louis Guillaumet  109 , Bruce Hoffman  110 , André Braga Junqueira  111 , Yadvinder Malhi  112 , Ires Paula de Andrade Miranda  3 , Linder Felipe Mozombite Pinto  93 , Adriana Prieto  113 , Agustín Rudas  113 , Ademir R Ruschel  48 , Natalino Silva  114 , César I A Vela  115 , Vincent Antoine Vos  116 , Egleé L Zent  117 , Stanford Zent  117 , Bianca Weiss Albuquerque  17 , Angela Cano  52   118 , Diego F Correa  52   119 , Janaina Barbosa Pedrosa Costa  80 , Bernardo Monteiro Flores  120 , Milena Holmgren  121 , Marcelo Trindade Nascimento  122 , Alexandre A Oliveira  77 , Hirma Ramirez-Angulo  123 , Maira Rocha  17 , Veridiana Vizoni Scudeller  124 , Rodrigo Sierra  125 , Milton Tirado  125 , Maria Natalia Umaña  126 , Geertje van der Heijden  127 , Emilio Vilanova Torre  123   128 , Corine Vriesendorp  18 , Ophelia Wang  129 , Kenneth R Young  130 , Manuel Augusto Ahuite Reategui  131 , Cláudia Baider  77   132 , Henrik Balslev  133 , Sasha Cárdenas  52 , Luisa Fernanda Casas  52 , William Farfan-Rios  24   95   134 , Cid Ferreira  3 , Reynaldo Linares-Palomino  57 , Casimiro Mendoza  135   136 , Italo Mesones  60 , Armando Torres-Lezama  123 , Ligia Estela Urrego Giraldo  35 , Daniel Villarroel  73 , Roderick Zagt  137 , Miguel N Alexiades  138 , Karina Garcia-Cabrera  97 , Lionel Hernandez  41 , William Milliken  66 , Walter Palacios Cuenca  139 , Susamar Pansini  28 , Daniela Pauletto  140 , Freddy Ramirez Arevalo  141 , Adeilza Felipe Sampaio  28 , Elvis H Valderrama Sandoval  141   142 , Luis Valenzuela Gamarra  19 , Gerhard Boenisch  143 , Jens Kattge  144 , Nathan Kraft  145 , Aurora Levesley  7 , Karina Melgaço  7 , Georgia Pickavance  7 , Lourens Poorter  68 , Hans Ter Steege  16
Affiliations

Unraveling Amazon tree community assembly using Maximum Information Entropy: a quantitative analysis of tropical forest ecology

Edwin Pos et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

In a time of rapid global change, the question of what determines patterns in species abundance distribution remains a priority for understanding the complex dynamics of ecosystems. The constrained maximization of information entropy provides a framework for the understanding of such complex systems dynamics by a quantitative analysis of important constraints via predictions using least biased probability distributions. We apply it to over two thousand hectares of Amazonian tree inventories across seven forest types and thirteen functional traits, representing major global axes of plant strategies. Results show that constraints formed by regional relative abundances of genera explain eight times more of local relative abundances than constraints based on directional selection for specific functional traits, although the latter does show clear signals of environmental dependency. These results provide a quantitative insight by inference from large-scale data using cross-disciplinary methods, furthering our understanding of ecological dynamics.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic depiction of the MEF procedure. Left panel shows a genus abundances per site and a functional trait matrix per genus, bottom half outlines calculations. Middle and right panel show different scenarios of neutral and deterministic dynamics under infinite or limited migration. Figure was custom made using Adobe Illustrator (Adobe Inc., 2019. Adobe Illustrator).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Visual representation of pure trait, pure metacommunity, hybrid model and the remaining unexplained information for each separate forest type. Abbreviations indicate different types: igapó (IG), podzol (PZ), swamp (SW), Brazilian shield terra firme (TFBS), Guiana Shield terra firme (TFGS), Pebas terra firme (TFPB) and várzea (VA). Boxplots show median value of pure effects over all samples, with lower and upper hinges corresponding to 25th and 75th percentiles. Whiskers extends from hinge to largest or smallest value no further than 1.5 * IQR from hinge. Points beyond this range are plotted individually and only positive values were plotted.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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