Scientists name the commonest tropical tree species for the first time

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON

A major international collaboration of 356 scientists led by UCL researchers has found almost identical patterns of tree diversity across the world’s tropical forests.

The study of over one million trees across 1,568 locations, published in Nature, found that just 2.2% of tree species make up 50% of the total number of trees in tropical forests across Africa, the Amazon, and Southeast Asia. Each continent consists of the same proportion of a few common species and many rare species.

While tropical forests are famous for their diversity, this is the first time that scientists have studied the commonest trees in the world’s tropical forests.

The scientists estimate that just 1,053 species account for half of the planet’s 800 billion tropical forest trees. The other half are comprised of 46,000 tree species. The number of rare species is extreme, with the rarest 39,500 species accounting for just 10% of trees.

Lead author Dr Declan Cooper (UCL Geography and UCL Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research) said: “Our findings have profound implications for understanding tropical forests. If we focus on understanding the commonest tree species, we can probably predict how the whole forest will respond to today’s rapid environmental changes. This is especially important because tropical forests contain a tremendous amount of stored carbon, and are a globally important carbon sink.”

He continued: “Identifying the prevalence of the most common species gives scientists a new way of looking at tropical forests. Tracking these common species may provide a new way to characterise these forests and in the future possibly gauge a forest’s health more easily.”

The researchers found strikingly similar patterns in the proportion of tree species that are common, at close to 2.2%, despite the tropical forests of the Amazon, Africa and Southeast Asia each having a unique history and differing contemporary environments.

The Amazon consists of a large region of connected forest, while Southeast Asia is a region of mostly disconnected islands. People only arrived in the Amazon around 20,000 years ago, but people have been living in African and Southeast Asian forests for more than twice that length of time. In terms of the contemporary environment, African forests experience a drier and cooler climate than the other two tropical forest regions.

Given these striking differences, the near-identical patterns of tree diversity suggests that a fundamental mechanism may govern the assembly of tree communities across all the world’s tropical forests. The researchers are not yet able to say what that mechanism might be and it will focus future work on identifying it.

The estimates of common species derive from statistical analyses, which does not provide the names of the common trees. To overcome this, the scientists used a technique known as resampling to estimate which are the most likely names of the common species. Their list of 1,119 tree species names, the first list of common species of the world’s tropical forests, will allow researchers to focus their efforts on understanding the ecology of these species, which in turn can give scientists a short-cut to understand the whole forest.

See table below for a list of the most common tropical tree species.

Senior author, Professor Simon Lewis (UCL Geography and University of Leeds) said: “We wanted to look at tropical forests in a new way. Focusing on a few hundred common tree species on each continent, rather than the many thousands of species that we know almost nothing about, can open new ways to understand these precious forests. This focus on the commonest species should not take away from the importance of rare species. Rare species need special attention to protect them, but quick and important gains in knowledge will come from a scientific focus on the commonest tree species.”

The researchers assembled forest inventory data from intact tropical forests that hadn’t been affected by logging or fire. In each of 1,568 locations, teams identified and recorded every tree with a trunk greater than 10 centimetres in diameter, in a patch of forest, usually one hectare, which is a square of forest measuring 100 metres on each side.

Professor Lewis has been collecting and collating this data for 20 years. The effort is a collaboration of the largest plot networks across the Amazon (Amazon Tree Diversity Network; RAINFOR), Africa (African Tropical Rainforest Observatory Network, AfriTRON; Central African Plot Network), and Southeast Asia (Slik Diversity Network; T-FORCES), brought together for the first time for the published analysis.

This collaboration across hundreds of researchers, field assistants, and local communities resulted in a total of 1,003,805 trees sampled, which included 8,493 tree species, across 2,048 hectares, equivalent to almost eight square miles of forest. The teams inventoried 1,097 plots in the Amazon totalling 1,434 hectares, 368 plots in Africa totalling 450 hectares, and 103 plots in Southeast Asia totalling 164 hectares.

This research was supported by the Natural Environmental Research Council.

Most common tropical forest tree species:

Continent	Scientific name	Local Names
Africa	Gilbertiodendron dewevrei	Limbali, otabo, agbabu, ekpagoi-eze
Africa	Greenwayodendron suaveolens	Africa Teak, atorewa, ẹ́wáé, nchua, eleku, agudugbu
Africa	Anonidium mannii	Junglesop, imido, asumpa, ọ̀ghẹ́dẹ́gbó
Africa	Petersianthus macrocarpus	Stinkwood tree; soap tree abalé, tun-tue, pèh, ésiv, kpa
Africa	Santiria trimera	adjouaba à racines aériennes, damzin, an-thanjka, kafe, poh, gólógóló.
Africa	Strombosia pustulata	itako, afina, poé, mba esogo
Africa	Tabernaemontana crassa	Adam's-apple flower, k-poŋgbo, opuko, patié patié, pete-pete
Africa	Staudtia kamerunensis	Niové, ichala, ọbara-okisi, íyìp ókōyò
Africa	Strombosiopsis tetrandra	Bwika, Mbazoo
Africa	Dichostemma glaucescens	Mangamba, Mongamba
Amazonia	Oenocarpus bacaba	Bacaba, Turu Palm
Amazonia	Eschweilera coriacea	matamatá
Amazonia	Iriartea deltoidea	bombona
Amazonia	Pentaclethra macroloba	pracaxi
Amazonia	Euterpe oleracea	açaí palm
Amazonia	Astrocaryum murumuru	murumuru
Amazonia	Geissospermum sericeum	quina-quina branca, pao pereira
Amazonia	Eperua falcata	bootlace tree, bi udu, wapa
Amazonia	Euterpe precatoria	mountain cabbage; açai, açaizeiro, açaí-do-amazonas, palmiche, wassaï, huasaí, manaca
Amazonia	Rinorea racemosa	branquinha
Southeast Asia	Shorea multiflora	yellow meranti
Southeast Asia	Tristaniopsis merguensis	Hill Tristania
Southeast Asia	Cotylelobium melanoxylon	Resak hitam; Khiam khaao; Resak tempurong; Giam tembaga
Southeast Asia	Dehaasia caesia	Magasil, Medang
Southeast Asia	Streblus ilicifolius	Jungle Holly, Merlimau
Southeast Asia	Shorea xanthophylla	seraya kuning barun
Southeast Asia	Shorea parvifolia	light red meranti, white lauan
Southeast Asia	Elateriospermum tapos	Perah, Buah Perah, Pogoh Nut, Tapos
Southeast Asia	Ixonanthes reticulata	Pagar Anak, Ten Men Tree, Inggir Burong, Nyiran Burong
Southeast Asia	Gluta oba	Rengas

Notes to Editors

For more information or to speak to the researchers involved, please contact Michael Lucibella, UCL Media Relations. T: +44 (0)75 3941 0389, E: m.lucibella@ucl.ac.uk

Declan Cooper, Simon Lewis, et. al, ‘Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities’ will be published in Nature on Wednesday 10 January 2024, 16:00 UK time, 11:00 US Eastern Time, and is under a strict embargo until this time.

The DOI for this paper will be 10.1038/s41586-023-06820-z

Upon publication, the paper will be available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06820-z

Additional material

About UCL – London’s Global University

UCL is a diverse global community of world-class academics, students, industry links, external partners, and alumni. Our powerful collective of individuals and institutions work together to explore new possibilities.

Since 1826, we have championed independent thought by attracting and nurturing the world's best minds. Our community of more than 50,000 students from 150 countries and over 16,000 staff pursues academic excellence, breaks boundaries and makes a positive impact on real world problems.

The Times and Sunday Times University of the Year 2024, we are consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in the world and are one of only a handful of institutions rated as having the strongest academic reputation and the broadest research impact.

We have a progressive and integrated approach to our teaching and research – championing innovation, creativity and cross-disciplinary working. We teach our students how to think, not what to think, and see them as partners, collaborators and contributors.

For almost 200 years, we are proud to have opened higher education to students from a wide range of backgrounds and to change the way we create and share knowledge.

We were the first in England to welcome women to university education and that courageous attitude and disruptive spirit is still alive today. We are UCL.

JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-023-06820-z

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jan-2024

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Friday, January 19, 2024