Osuri, AM, Ratnam, J, Varma, V et al. (11 more authors) (2016) Contrasting effects of defaunation on aboveground carbon storage across the global tropics. Nature Communications, 7. 11351. ISSN 2041-1723
Abstract
Defaunation is causing declines of large-seeded animal-dispersed trees in tropical forests worldwide, but whether and how these declines will affect carbon storage across this biome is unclear. Here we show, using a pan-tropical dataset, that simulated declines of large-seeded animal-dispersed trees have contrasting effects on aboveground carbon stocks across Earth’s tropical forests. In our simulations, African, Neotropical and South Asian forests which have high proportions of animal-dispersed species consistently show carbon losses (2-12%), but Southeast Asian and Australian forests where there are more abiotically-dispersed species show little to no carbon losses or marginal gains (±1%). These patterns result primarily from changes in wood volume, and are underlain by consistent relationships in our empirical data (~2100 species), wherein, large-seeded animal-dispersed species are larger as adults than small-seeded animal-dispersed species, but are smaller than abiotically-dispersed species. Thus, floristic differences and distinct dispersal mode-seed size-adult size combinations can drive contrasting regional responses to defaunation.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) 2016, The Authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biology (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 26 May 2016 09:16 |
Last Modified: | 11 Apr 2018 13:22 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11351 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/ncomms11351 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:97086 |