Publications by authors named "Cecilia Blundo"
Patterns of species diversity have been associated with changes in climate across latitude and elevation. However, the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms underlying these relationships are still actively debated. Here, we present a complementary view of the well-known tropical niche conservatism (TNC) hypothesis, termed the multiple zones of origin (MZO) hypothesis, to explore mechanisms underlying latitudinal and elevational gradients of phylogenetic diversity in tree communities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe introduce the FunAndes database, a compilation of functional trait data for the Andean flora spanning six countries. FunAndes contains data on 24 traits across 2,694 taxa, for a total of 105,466 entries. The database features plant-morphological attributes including growth form, and leaf, stem, and wood traits measured at the species or individual level, together with geographic metadata (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Scientists studied how forests in the Andes Mountains in South America help the Earth by storing carbon, which is important for fighting climate change.
- They found that these forests are very good at catching carbon from the air and have the potential to store even more in the future.
- Protecting these forests from being cut down can help them store more carbon, support plants moving to higher places as temperatures rise, and recover from losses caused by climate change.
Article Synopsis
- The study reveals that knowledge about Andean forest structure and function is limited at larger scales, especially in the tropical and subtropical regions.
- The research analyzed tree species diversity and patterns across ~4000 km of latitude and ~4000 m of elevation, utilizing a comprehensive database of 491 forest plots.
- Findings show that tree density and basal area increase with elevation, while species richness decreases with both elevation and latitude, highlighting the distinct compositions of subtropical versus tropical forests.
In Fig. 2 of this Article, the positive part of the y axis scale should read 0, 0.02, 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlobal warming is forcing many species to shift their distributions upward, causing consequent changes in the compositions of species that occur at specific locations. This prediction remains largely untested for tropical trees. Here we show, using a database of nearly 200 Andean forest plot inventories spread across more than 33.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGeneral patterns of forest dynamics and productivity in the Andes Mountains are poorly characterized. Here we present the first large-scale study of Andean forest dynamics using a set of 63 permanent forest plots assembled over the past two decades. In the North-Central Andes tree turnover (mortality and recruitment) and tree growth declined with increasing elevation and decreasing temperature.
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