Publications by authors named "O M Phillips"
Unlike most rivers globally, nearly all lowland Amazonian rivers have unregulated flow, supporting seasonally flooded floodplain forests. Floodplain forests harbor a unique tree species assemblage adapted to flooding and specialized fauna, including fruit-eating fish that migrate seasonally into floodplains, favoring expansive floodplain areas. Frugivorous fish are forest-dependent fauna critical to forest regeneration via seed dispersal and support commercial and artisanal fisheries.
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- Plant communities consist of species with varying functional traits and evolutionary backgrounds, leading to the expectation that functional diversity increases with phylogenetic diversity.* -
- Contrary to this expectation, a study of over 1.7 million vegetation plots showed that functional and phylogenetic diversity are weakly and negatively correlated, suggesting they operate independently.* -
- Phylogenetic diversity is more pronounced in forests and reflects recent climate, while functional diversity is influenced by both past and recent climate, highlighting the need to assess both types of diversity for ecosystem studies and conservation strategies.*
Article Synopsis
- * Analysis of data from over 1 million forest plots and thousands of tree species shows that wood density varies significantly by latitude, being up to 30% denser in tropical forests compared to boreal forests, and is influenced mainly by temperature and soil moisture.
- * The research also finds that disturbances like human activity and fire alter wood density at local levels, affecting forest carbon stock estimates by up to 21%, emphasizing the importance of understanding environmental impacts on forest ecosystems.
Tree growth and longevity trade-offs fundamentally shape the terrestrial carbon balance. Yet, we lack a unified understanding of how such trade-offs vary across the world's forests. By mapping life history traits for a wide range of species across the Americas, we reveal considerable variation in life expectancies from 10 centimeters in diameter (ranging from 1.
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