Title
Contrasting effects of defaunation on aboveground carbon storage across the global tropics
Author(s)
Osuri, Anand M.;Ratnam, Jayashree;Varma, Varun;Alvarez-Loayza, Patricia;Hurtado Astaiza, Johanna;Bradford, Matt;Fletcher, Christine;Ndoundou-Hockemba, Mireille;Jansen, Patrick A.;Kenfack, David;Marshall, Andrew R.;Ramesh, B. R.;Rovero, Francesco;Sankaran, Mahesh
Published
2016
Publisher
Nature Communications
Published Version DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11351
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 data set, 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, American 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 ([plusmn]1%). These patterns result primarily from changes in wood volume, and are underlain by consistent relationships in our empirical data ([sim]2,100 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.
Keywords
Biological sciences;Ecology;Plant sciences;Biogeochemistry

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