Abstract
The high species richness of tropical forests has long been recognized, yet there remains substantial uncertainty regarding the actual number of tropical tree species. Using a pantropical tree inventory database from closed canopy forests, consisting of 657,630 trees belonging to 11,371 species, we use a fitted value of Fisher's alpha and an approximate pantropical stem total to estimate the minimum number of tropical forest tree species to fall between ∼40,000 and ∼53,000, i.e., at the high end of previous estimates. Contrary to common assumption, the Indo-Pacific region was found to be as species-rich as the Neotropics, with both regions having a minimum of ∼19,000-25,000 tree species. Continental Africa is relatively depauperate with a minimum of ∼4,500-6,000 tree species. Very few species are shared among the African, American, and the Indo-Pacific regions. We provide a methodological framework for estimating species richness in trees that may help refine species richness estimates of tree-dependent taxa.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 7472-7477 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
Volume | 112 |
Issue number | 24 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 16 Jun 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Correction can be found at PNAS August 18, 2015 112 (33) E4628-E4629. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1512611112Keywords
- diversity estimation
- Fisher's log series
- pantropical
- spatial richness patterns
- tropical tree species richness