TY - JOUR
T1 - Elevation and latitude drives structure and tree species composition in Andean forests
T2 - Results from a large-scale plot network
AU - Malizia, Agustina
AU - Blundo, Cecilia
AU - Carilla, Julieta
AU - Acosta, Oriana Osinaga
AU - Cuesta, Francisco
AU - Duque, Alvaro
AU - Aguirre, Nikolay
AU - Aguirre, Zhofre
AU - Ataroff, Michele
AU - Baez, Selene
AU - Calderón-Loor, Marco
AU - Cayola, Leslie
AU - Cayuela, Luis
AU - Ceballos, Sergio
AU - Cedillo, Hugo
AU - Ríos, William Farfán
AU - Feeley, Kenneth J.
AU - Fuentes, Alfredo Fernando
AU - Gámez Álvarez, Luis E.
AU - Grau, Ricardo
AU - Homeier, Juergen
AU - Jadan, Oswaldo
AU - Llambi, Luis Daniel
AU - Rivera, María Isabel Loza
AU - Macía, Manuel J.
AU - Malhi, Yadvinder
AU - Malizia, Lucio
AU - Peralvo, Manuel
AU - Pinto, Esteban
AU - Tello, Sebastián
AU - Silman, Miles
AU - Young, Kenneth R.
N1 - Funding Information:
FC, MP received funding from Andean Forest Program implemented by the Consortium for the Sustainable Development of the Andean Ecoregion (CONDESAN) and Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation, and funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Additional funding came from the EcoAndes Project conducted by CONDESAN and United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment), funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF; Cooperation Agreement No. 4750). AM, CB, LRM received funding for PICT-O 2014-0059 Project, FONCYT, Argentina. FC received funding from Universidad de las Am?ricas for covering the publication fee and make this research open access. We thank all the people involved in the installation and monitoring of plots along the Andean Forest Network, and to the different institutions and financiers in different countries who made the field work possible. We also thank all the taxonomic experts, students and local guides that were involved in the collection of the field data and in the identification of plant specimens. We also thank Parque Sierra de San Javier, Administraci?n de Parques Nacionales and private owners in Argentina for facilitating the establishment and monitoring of permanent plots, the Instituto Nacional de Parques in Venezuela for facilitating establishment of permanent plots in the Sierra Nevada National Park. We thank Andrea Izquierdo, Javier Foguet and Silvia Pacheco for their contribution with climatic data and collaboration with the map of Fig 2.
PY - 2020/4
Y1 - 2020/4
N2 - Our knowledge about the structure and function of Andean forests at regional scales remains limited. Current initiatives to study forests over continental or global scales still have important geographical gaps, particularly in regions such as the tropical and subtropical Andes. In this study, we assessed patterns of structure and tree species diversity along ~ 4000 km of latitude and ~ 4000 m of elevation range in Andean forests. We used the Andean Forest Network (Red de Bosques Andinos, https://redbosques.condesan.org/) database which, at present, includes 491 forest plots (totaling 156.3 ha, ranging from 0.01 to 6 ha) representing a total of 86,964 identified tree stems ≥ 10 cm diameter at breast height belonging to 2341 identified species, 584 genera and 133 botanical families. Tree stem density and basal area increases with elevation while species richness decreases. Stem density and species richness both decrease with latitude. Subtropical forests have distinct tree species composition compared to those in the tropical region. In addition, floristic similarity of subtropical plots is between 13 to 16% while similarity between tropical forest plots is between 3% to 9%. Overall, plots ~ 0.5-ha or larger may be preferred for describing patterns at regional scales in order to avoid plot size effects. We highlight the need to promote collaboration and capacity building among researchers in the Andean region (i.e., South-South cooperation) in order to generate and synthesize information at regional scale.
AB - Our knowledge about the structure and function of Andean forests at regional scales remains limited. Current initiatives to study forests over continental or global scales still have important geographical gaps, particularly in regions such as the tropical and subtropical Andes. In this study, we assessed patterns of structure and tree species diversity along ~ 4000 km of latitude and ~ 4000 m of elevation range in Andean forests. We used the Andean Forest Network (Red de Bosques Andinos, https://redbosques.condesan.org/) database which, at present, includes 491 forest plots (totaling 156.3 ha, ranging from 0.01 to 6 ha) representing a total of 86,964 identified tree stems ≥ 10 cm diameter at breast height belonging to 2341 identified species, 584 genera and 133 botanical families. Tree stem density and basal area increases with elevation while species richness decreases. Stem density and species richness both decrease with latitude. Subtropical forests have distinct tree species composition compared to those in the tropical region. In addition, floristic similarity of subtropical plots is between 13 to 16% while similarity between tropical forest plots is between 3% to 9%. Overall, plots ~ 0.5-ha or larger may be preferred for describing patterns at regional scales in order to avoid plot size effects. We highlight the need to promote collaboration and capacity building among researchers in the Andean region (i.e., South-South cooperation) in order to generate and synthesize information at regional scale.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0231553
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0231553
M3 - Article
C2 - 32311701
AN - SCOPUS:85083487910
VL - 15
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 4
M1 - e0231553
ER -