Journal Article

Importance of topography for tree species habitat distributions in a terra firme forest in the Colombian Amazon

Barona, Andrés, Castaño, Nicolas, Detto, Matteo, Duque, Alvaro, Russo, Sabrina E., Cardenas, Dairon, Turner, Benjamin L., Sua, Sonia, Barreto-Silva, Juan S., Davies, Stuart J., Zuleta, Daniel

2020

Overview

Aims To test the relative importance of topography versus soil chemistry in defining tree species-habitat associations in a terra firme Amazonian forest. Method We evaluated habitat associations for 612 woody species using alternative habitat maps generated from topography and soil chemistry in the 25-ha Amacayacu Forest Dynamics Plot, Colombian Amazon. We assessed the ability of each habitat map to explain the community-level patterns of species-habitat associations using two methods of habitat randomization and different sample size thresholds (i.e., species’ abundance). Results The greatest proportion of species-habitat associations arose from topographically-defined habitats (55% to 63%) compared to soil chemistry-defined (19% to 40%) or topography plus soil chemistry-defined habitats (18% to 42%). Results were robust to the method of habitat randomization and to sample size threshold. Conclusions Our results demonstrate that certain environmental factors may be more influential than others in defining forest-level patterns of community assembly and that comparison of the ability of different environmental variables to explain habitat associations is a crucial step in testing hypotheses about the mechanisms underlying assembly. Our results point to topography-driven hydrological variation as a key factor structuring tree species distributions in what are commonly considered homogeneous Amazonian terra firme forests.

• Publisher: Springer International Publishing,Springer,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Amacayacu forest dynamics plot / Amazonia / Assembly / Biomedical and Life Sciences / Communities / Distribution / Ecology / Ekologi / Environmental aspects / Environmental factors / forest dynamics / Forest ecology / Forest ecosystems / Forest global earth observatory (ForestGEO) / Forest Science / Forests / Habitat filtering / Habitats / Hydrological niches / Hydrology / Iterative amplitude adjusted Fourier transform / Life Sciences / Northwestern Amazon / Organic chemistry / Physiological aspects / Plant Physiology / Plant Sciences / Plant species / Plant-soil relationships / Randomization / Regular Article / sample size / Skogsvetenskap / soil / Soil chemistry / Soil dynamics / Soil Science & Conservation / Species / Topographical drawing / Topography / Torus translation test / Trees / woody plants