Search

Analysis combining multiple global tree databases reveals that whether a location is invaded by non-native tree species depends on anthropogenic factors, but the severity of the invasion depends on the native species diversity.

A global research network monitoring the Amazon for 30 years reports in this study that tree size increased by 3% each decade.

Species’ traits and environmental conditions determine the abundance of tree species across the globe. Here, the authors find that dominant tree species are taller and have softer wood compared to rare species and that these trait differences are more strongly associated with temperature than water availability.

The authors analyse tree responses to an extreme heat and drought event across South America to understand long-term climate resistance. While no more sensitive to this than previous lesser events, forests in drier climates showed the greatest impacts and thus vulnerability to climate extremes.

Wood density is an important plant trait. Data from 1.1 million forest inventory plots and 10,703 tree species show a latitudinal gradient in wood density, with temperature and soil moisture explaining variation at the global scale and disturbance also having a role at the local level.

Analysing >1,700 inventory plots from the Amazon Tree Diversity Network, the authors show that the majority of Amazon tree species can occupy floodplains and that patterns of species turnover are closely linked to regional flood patterns.

Inventory data from more than 1 million trees across African, Amazonian and Southeast Asian tropical forests suggests that, despite their high diversity, just 1,053 species, representing a consistent ~2.2% of tropical tree species in each region, constitute half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees.

Analysis of ground-sourced and satellite-derived models reveals a global forest carbon potential of 226 Gt outside agricultural and urban lands, with a difference of only 12% across these modelling approaches.

Tree mortality has been shown to be the dominant control on carbon storage in Amazon forests, but little is known of how and why Amazon forest trees die. Here the authors analyse a large Amazon-wide dataset, finding that fast-growing species face greater mortality risk, but that slower-growing individuals within a species are more likely to die, regardless of size.

Two dominant gradients in tree composition and function across the Amazon reflect patterns of soil fertility and differences in the length of the dry season length. The dominance of legumes in the Guiana shield may be due to high seed mass and low rates of disturbance, rather than root adaptations to poor soils.

Most Amazon tree species are rare but a small proportion are common across the region. The authors show that different species are hyperdominant in different size classes and that hyperdominance is more phylogenetically restricted for larger canopy trees than for smaller understory ones.

The role of non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) in mediating the impacts of drought in tropical trees is unclear. Here, the authors analyse leaf and branch NSC in 82 Amazon tree species across a Basin-wide precipitation gradient, finding that allocation of leaf NSC to soluble sugars is higher in drier sites and is coupled to tree hydraulic status.

Inventory data from 90 lowland Amazonian forest plots and a phylogeny of 526 angiosperm genera were used to show that taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity are both predictive of wood productivity but not of biomass variation.

A pan-Amazon study of forests shows large variations in drought tolerance traits and finds that forests in regions of pronounced climate change are losing biomass and may be operating beyond their hydraulic limits.

Alternative stable states in forests have implications for the biosphere. Here, the authors combine forest biodiversity observations and simulations revealing that leaf types across temperate regions of the NH follow a bimodal distribution suggesting signatures of alternative forest states.

Global patterns of regional plant diversity are relatively well known, but whether they hold for local communities is debated. This study created multi-grain global maps of alpha diversity for vascular plants to provide a nuanced understanding of plant diversity hotspots and improve predictions of global change effects on biodiversity.

Integrating inventory data with machine learning models reveals the global composition of tree types—needle-leaved evergreen individuals dominate, followed by broadleaved evergreen and deciduous trees—and climate change risks.

This Resource combines amplicon sequencing, shotgun metagenomic sequencing and untargeted metabolomics to provide a global view of microbial–metabolite associations across Earth’s environments.

Data on tropical forests are in high demand. But ground forest measurements are hard to sustain and the people who make them are extremely disadvantaged compared to those who use them. We propose a new approach to forest data that focuses on the needs of data originators, and ensures users and funders contribute properly.

Using 13 functional traits we characterize the Amazonian trees and the communities they form. Amazonian tree communities are distributed along a fast-slow-spectrum. This results in clear differences in traits among these forests, as well as their biomass and biomass productivity.

Tree species turnover across Amazonian forests unveils sharp floristic transitional zones, that are linked with changes in soil fertility and climate.

A spatially explicit global map of tree symbioses with nitrogen-fixing bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi reveals that climate variables are the primary drivers of the distribution of different types of symbiosis.

A study mapping the tree species richness in Amazonian forests shows that soil type exerts a strong effect on species richness, probably caused by the areas of these forest types. Cumulative water deficit, tree density and temperature seasonality affect species richness at a regional scale.

An analysis of the finished sequence of human chromosome 12 representing 4.5% of the human genome determines that chromosome 12 hosts a number of genes mutated in specific cancers, as well as movement disorders and potentially Alzheimer's disease.