Plant diversity patterns in neotropical dry forests and their conservation implications
Top Cited Papers
- 22 September 2016
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 353 (6306), 1383-1387
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf5080
Abstract
Seasonally dry tropical forests are distributed across Latin America and the Caribbean and are highly threatened, with less than 10% of their original extent remaining in many countries. Using 835 inventories covering 4660 species of woody plants, we show marked floristic turnover among inventories and regions, which may be higher than in other neotropical biomes, such as savanna. Such high floristic turnover indicates that numerous conservation areas across many countries will be needed to protect the full diversity of tropical dry forests. Our results provide a scientific framework within which national decision-makers can contextualize the floristic significance of their dry forest at a regional and continental scale.Funding Information
- Leverhulme Trust International Network (IN-074)
- U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NE/I028122/1)
- Instituto Humboldt
- Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research
- NSF (NSF 1118340, 1118369, GEO 0452325)
- Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR)
- Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)
This publication has 35 references indexed in Scilit:
- Neotropical Plant Evolution: Assembling the Big PictureBotanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012
- Representation of Global and National Conservation Priorities by Colombia's Protected Area NetworkPLOS ONE, 2010
- Woody Plant Diversity, Evolution, and Ecology in the Tropics: Perspectives from Seasonally Dry Tropical ForestsAnnual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 2009
- An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants: APG IIIBotanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009
- Evidence for a Time‐Integrated Species‐Area Effect on the Latitudinal Gradient in Tree DiversityThe American Naturalist, 2006
- Research Priorities for Neotropical Dry Forests1Biotropica, 2005
- Miocene winged fruits of Loxopterygium (Anacardiaceae) from the Ecuadorian AndesAmerican Journal of Botany, 2004
- Neotropical seasonally dry forests and Quaternary vegetation changesJournal of Biogeography, 2000
- Diversity and floristic composition of neotropical dry forestsPublished by Cambridge University Press (CUP) ,1995
- The Dry Plant Formations of South America and Their Floristic ConnectionsJournal of Biogeography, 1975