The global abundance of tree palms

Robert Muscarella, - and Thaise Emilio, - and Oliver L. Phillips, - and Simon L. Lewis, - and Ferry Slik, - and William J. Baker, - and Thomas L. P. Couvreur, - and Wolf L. Eiserhardt, - and Jens-Christian Svenning, - and Kofi Affum-Baffoe, - and Shin-Ichiro Aiba, - and Everton C. de Almeida, - and Samuel S. de Almeida, - and Edmar Almeida de Oliveira, - and Esteban Álvarez-Dávila, - and Luciana F. Alves, - and Carlos Mariano Alvez-Valles, - and Fabrício Alvim Carvalho, - and Fernando Alzate Guarin, - and Ana Andrade, - and Luis E. O. C. Aragão, - and Alejandro Araujo Murakami, - and Luzmila Arroyo, - and Peter S. Ashton, - and Gerardo A. Aymard Corredor, - and Timothy R. Baker, - and Plinio Barbosa de Camargo, - and Jos Barlow, - and Jean-François Bastin, - and Natacha Nssi Bengone, - and Dr. Eddy Nurtjahya, M.Sc., - (2020) The global abundance of tree palms. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 29 (9). pp. 1501-1514. ISSN 1466-822X

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Abstract

Aim: Palms are an iconic, diverse and often abundant component of tropical ecosys-tems that provide many ecosystem services. Being monocots, tree palms are evo-lutionarily, morphologically and physiologically distinct from other trees, and these differences have important consequences for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon se-questration and storage) and in terms of responses to climate change. We quanti-fied global patterns of tree palm relative abundance to help improve understanding of tropical forests and reduce uncertainty about these ecosystems under climate change.Location: Tropical and subtropical moist forests.Time period: Current.Major taxa studied: Palms (Arecaceae).Methods: We assembled a pantropical dataset of 2,548 forest plots (covering 1,191 ha) and quantified tree palm (i.e., ≥10 cm diameter at breast height) abundance relative to co-occurring non-palm trees. We compared the relative abundance of tree palms across biogeographical realms and tested for associations with palaeoclimate stability, current climate, edaphic conditions and metrics of forest structure.Results: On average, the relative abundance of tree palms was more than five times larger between Neotropical locations and other biogeographical realms. Tree palms were absent in most locations outside the Neotropics but present in >80% of Neotropical locations. The relative abundance of tree palms was more strongly asso-ciated with local conditions (e.g., higher mean annual precipitation, lower soil fertility, shallower water table and lower plot mean wood density) than metrics of long-term climate stability. Life-form diversity also influenced the patterns; palm assemblages outside the Neotropics comprise many non-tree (e.g., climbing) palms. Finally, we show that tree palms can influence estimates of above-ground biomass, but the mag-nitude and direction of the effect require additional work.Conclusions: Tree palms are not only quintessentially tropical, but they are also over-whelmingly Neotropical. Future work to understand the contributions of tree palms to biomass estimates and carbon cycling will be particularly crucial in Neotropical forests.

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