Scientific Reports (Feb 2023)

Unraveling Amazon tree community assembly using Maximum Information Entropy: a quantitative analysis of tropical forest ecology

  • Edwin Pos,
  • Luiz de Souza Coelho,
  • Diogenes de Andrade Lima Filho,
  • Rafael P. Salomão,
  • Iêda Leão Amaral,
  • Francisca Dionízia de Almeida Matos,
  • Carolina V. Castilho,
  • Oliver L. Phillips,
  • Juan Ernesto Guevara,
  • Marcelo de Jesus Veiga Carim,
  • Dairon Cárdenas López,
  • William E. Magnusson,
  • Florian Wittmann,
  • Mariana Victória Irume,
  • Maria Pires Martins,
  • Daniel Sabatier,
  • José Renan da Silva Guimarães,
  • Jean-François Molino,
  • Olaf S. Bánki,
  • Maria Teresa Fernandez Piedade,
  • Nigel C. A. Pitman,
  • Abel Monteagudo Mendoza,
  • José Ferreira Ramos,
  • Joseph E. Hawes,
  • Everton José Almeida,
  • Luciane Ferreira Barbosa,
  • Larissa Cavalheiro,
  • Márcia Cléia Vilela dos Santos,
  • Bruno Garcia Luize,
  • Evlyn Márcia Moraes de Leão Novo,
  • Percy Núñez Vargas,
  • Thiago Sanna Freire Silva,
  • Eduardo Martins Venticinque,
  • Angelo Gilberto Manzatto,
  • Neidiane Farias Costa Reis,
  • John Terborgh,
  • Katia Regina Casula,
  • Euridice N. Honorio Coronado,
  • Juan Carlos Montero,
  • Beatriz S. Marimon,
  • Ben Hur Marimon-Junior,
  • Ted R. Feldpausch,
  • Alvaro Duque,
  • Chris Baraloto,
  • Nicolás Castaño Arboleda,
  • Julien Engel,
  • Pascal Petronelli,
  • Charles Eugene Zartman,
  • Timothy J. Killeen,
  • Rodolfo Vasquez,
  • Bonifacio Mostacedo,
  • Rafael L. Assis,
  • Jochen Schöngart,
  • Hernán Castellanos,
  • Marcelo Brilhante de Medeiros,
  • Marcelo Fragomeni Simon,
  • Ana Andrade,
  • José Luís Camargo,
  • Layon O. Demarchi,
  • William F. Laurance,
  • Susan G. W. Laurance,
  • Emanuelle de Sousa Farias,
  • Maria Aparecida Lopes,
  • José Leonardo Lima Magalhães,
  • Henrique Eduardo Mendonça Nascimento,
  • Helder Lima de Queiroz,
  • Gerardo A. C. Aymard,
  • Roel Brienen,
  • Juan David Cardenas Revilla,
  • Flávia R. C. Costa,
  • Adriano Quaresma,
  • Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira,
  • Bruno Barçante Ladvocat Cintra,
  • Pablo R. Stevenson,
  • Yuri Oliveira Feitosa,
  • Joost F. Duivenvoorden,
  • Hugo F. Mogollón,
  • Leandro Valle Ferreira,
  • James A. Comiskey,
  • Freddie Draper,
  • José Julio de Toledo,
  • Gabriel Damasco,
  • Nállarett Dávila,
  • Roosevelt García-Villacorta,
  • Aline Lopes,
  • Alberto Vicentini,
  • Janaína Costa Noronha,
  • Flávia Rodrigues Barbosa,
  • Rainiellen de Sá Carpanedo,
  • Thaise Emilio,
  • Carolina Levis,
  • Domingos de Jesus Rodrigues,
  • Juliana Schietti,
  • Priscila Souza,
  • Alfonso Alonso,
  • Francisco Dallmeier,
  • Vitor H. F. Gomes,
  • Jon Lloyd,
  • David Neill,
  • Daniel Praia Portela de Aguiar,
  • Alejandro Araujo-Murakami,
  • Luzmila Arroyo,
  • Fernanda Antunes Carvalho,
  • Fernanda Coelho de Souza,
  • Dário Dantas do Amaral,
  • Kenneth J. Feeley,
  • Rogerio Gribel,
  • Marcelo Petratti Pansonato,
  • Jos Barlow,
  • Erika Berenguer,
  • Joice Ferreira,
  • Paul V. A. Fine,
  • Marcelino Carneiro Guedes,
  • Eliana M. Jimenez,
  • Juan Carlos Licona,
  • Maria Cristina Peñuela Mora,
  • Carlos A. Peres,
  • Boris Eduardo Villa Zegarra,
  • Carlos Cerón,
  • Terry W. Henkel,
  • Paul Maas,
  • Marcos Silveira,
  • Juliana Stropp,
  • Raquel Thomas-Caesar,
  • Tim R. Baker,
  • Doug Daly,
  • Kyle G. Dexter,
  • John Ethan Householder,
  • Isau Huamantupa-Chuquimaco,
  • Toby Pennington,
  • Marcos Ríos Paredes,
  • Alfredo Fuentes,
  • José Luis Marcelo Pena,
  • Miles R. Silman,
  • J. Sebastián Tello,
  • Jerome Chave,
  • Fernando Cornejo Valverde,
  • Anthony Di Fiore,
  • Renato Richard Hilário,
  • Juan Fernando Phillips,
  • Gonzalo Rivas-Torres,
  • Tinde R. van Andel,
  • Patricio von Hildebrand,
  • Edelcilio Marques Barbosa,
  • Luiz Carlos de Matos Bonates,
  • Hilda Paulette Dávila Doza,
  • Émile Fonty,
  • Ricardo Zárate Gómez,
  • Therany Gonzales,
  • George Pepe Gallardo Gonzales,
  • Jean-Louis Guillaumet,
  • Bruce Hoffman,
  • André Braga Junqueira,
  • Yadvinder Malhi,
  • Ires Paula de Andrade Miranda,
  • Linder Felipe Mozombite Pinto,
  • Adriana Prieto,
  • Agustín Rudas,
  • Ademir R. Ruschel,
  • Natalino Silva,
  • César I. A. Vela,
  • Vincent Antoine Vos,
  • Egleé L. Zent,
  • Stanford Zent,
  • Bianca Weiss Albuquerque,
  • Angela Cano,
  • Diego F. Correa,
  • Janaina Barbosa Pedrosa Costa,
  • Bernardo Monteiro Flores,
  • Milena Holmgren,
  • Marcelo Trindade Nascimento,
  • Alexandre A. Oliveira,
  • Hirma Ramirez-Angulo,
  • Maira Rocha,
  • Veridiana Vizoni Scudeller,
  • Rodrigo Sierra,
  • Milton Tirado,
  • Maria Natalia Umaña,
  • Geertje van der Heijden,
  • Emilio Vilanova Torre,
  • Corine Vriesendorp,
  • Ophelia Wang,
  • Kenneth R. Young,
  • Manuel Augusto Ahuite Reategui,
  • Cláudia Baider,
  • Henrik Balslev,
  • Sasha Cárdenas,
  • Luisa Fernanda Casas,
  • William Farfan-Rios,
  • Cid Ferreira,
  • Reynaldo Linares-Palomino,
  • Casimiro Mendoza,
  • Italo Mesones,
  • Armando Torres-Lezama,
  • Ligia Estela Urrego Giraldo,
  • Daniel Villarroel,
  • Roderick Zagt,
  • Miguel N. Alexiades,
  • Karina Garcia-Cabrera,
  • Lionel Hernandez,
  • William Milliken,
  • Walter Palacios Cuenca,
  • Susamar Pansini,
  • Daniela Pauletto,
  • Freddy Ramirez Arevalo,
  • Adeilza Felipe Sampaio,
  • Elvis H. Valderrama Sandoval,
  • Luis Valenzuela Gamarra,
  • Gerhard Boenisch,
  • Jens Kattge,
  • Nathan Kraft,
  • Aurora Levesley,
  • Karina Melgaço,
  • Georgia Pickavance,
  • Lourens Poorter,
  • Hans ter Steege

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-28132-y
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

Read online

Abstract In a time of rapid global change, the question of what determines patterns in species abundance distribution remains a priority for understanding the complex dynamics of ecosystems. The constrained maximization of information entropy provides a framework for the understanding of such complex systems dynamics by a quantitative analysis of important constraints via predictions using least biased probability distributions. We apply it to over two thousand hectares of Amazonian tree inventories across seven forest types and thirteen functional traits, representing major global axes of plant strategies. Results show that constraints formed by regional relative abundances of genera explain eight times more of local relative abundances than constraints based on directional selection for specific functional traits, although the latter does show clear signals of environmental dependency. These results provide a quantitative insight by inference from large-scale data using cross-disciplinary methods, furthering our understanding of ecological dynamics.