Insights into regional patterns of Amazonian forest structure, diversity, and dominance from three large terra-firme forest dynamics plots

• Published in: Biodiversity and conservation 2017-03, Vol.26 (3), p.669-686
• Main Authors: Duque, Alvaro, Muller-Landau, Helene C., Valencia, Renato, Cardenas, Dairon, Davies, Stuart, de Oliveira, Alexandre, Pérez, Álvaro J., Romero-Saltos, Hugo, Vicentini, Alberto
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analysis; Biodiversity; Biological diversity; Biomass; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts; Conservation biology; Conservation Biology/Ecology; Ecology; Forest and plantation biodiversity; Forest ecosystems; Forests; Life Sciences; Original Paper; Plant diversity; Plant species; Spatial analysis; Species diversity; Species richness; Terrestrial ecosystems; Trees
• ISSN: 0960-3115; 1572-9710
• DOI: 10.1007/s10531-016-1265-9

We analyze forest structure, diversity, and dominance in three large-scale Amazonian forest dynamics plots located in Northwestern (Yasuni and Amacayacu) and central (Manaus) Amazonia, to evaluate their consistency with prevailing wisdom regarding geographic variation and the shape of species abundance distributions, and to assess the robustness of among-site patterns to plot area, minimum tree size, and treatment of morphospecies. We utilized data for 441,088 trees (DBH ≥1 cm) in three 25-ha forest dynamics plots. Manaus had significantly higher biomass and mean wood density than Yasuni and Amacayacu. At the 1-ha scale, species richness averaged 649 for trees ≥1 cm DBH, and was lower in Amacayacu than in Manaus or Yasuni; however, at the 25-ha scale the rankings shifted, with Yasuni