Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities

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Susan G W and Laurance, William F and Laurent, Félix and Le, Tinh Cong and Le, Trai Trong and Leal, Miguel E and Leão de Moraes Novo, Evlyn Márcia and Levesley, Aurora and Libalah, Moses B and Licona, Juan Carlos and Lima Filho, Diógenes de Andrade and Lindsell, Jeremy A and Lopes, Aline and Lopes, Maria Aparecida and Lovett, Jon C and Lowe, Richard and Lozada, José Rafael and Lu, Xinghui and Luambua, Nestor K and Luize, Bruno Garcia and Maas, Paul and Magalhães, José Leonardo Lima and Magnusson, William E and Mahayani, Ni Putu Diana and Makana, Jean-Remy and Malhi, Yadvinder and Maniguaje Rincón, Lorena and Mansor, Asyraf and Manzatto, Angelo Gilberto and Marimon, Beatriz S and Marimon-Junior, Ben Hur and Marshall, Andrew R and Martins, Maria Pires and Mbayu, Faustin M and de Medeiros, Marcelo Brilhante and Mesones, Italo and Metali, Faizah and Mihindou, Vianet and Millet, Jerome and Milliken, William and Mogollón, Hugo F and Molino, Jean-François and Mohd Said, Mohd Nizam and 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Vilanova Torre, Emilio and Villarroel, Daniel and Villa Zegarra, Boris Eduardo and Vleminckx, Jason and von Hildebrand, Patricio and Vos, Vincent Antoine and Vriesendorp, Corine and Webb, Edward L and White, Lee J T and Wich, Serge and Wittmann, Florian and Zagt, Roderick and Zang, Runguo and Zartman, Charles Eugene and Zemagho, Lise and Zent, Egleé L and Zent, Stanford (2024) Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities. Nature. ISSN 0028-0836

Abstract

Trees structure the Earth's most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth's 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories , we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world's most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees.