Browsing by Autor "Bryan Finegan"

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A new data archiving policy for <i>Biotropica</i>
(Wiley, 2016) Emilio M. Bruna; Marielos Peña‐Claros; Bryan Finegan; Beth A. Kaplin
Recent years have seen an upsurge in the value placed by the scientific community on archiving in permanent repositories the data that serve as the foundation of published articles. Many reasons have been put forward for why archiving data are valuable (Bruna 2010, Whitlock et al. 2010, Wenburg 2011), with some of the most compelling including: In the light of these important benefits to the scientific community, the Editorial Board of Biotropica has voted to implement the Data Archiving Policy described below for all manuscripts submitted after January 1, 2016. This policy is an important and exciting step forward for Biotropica. We join an elite group of journals in our field that mandate data archiving, including The American Naturalist, Oikos, and the journals of the British Ecological Society, but in a way that meets the needs of our unique community of authors. First, our policy includes a generous embargo period of up to 3 yr to ensure authors have ample time to publish multiple papers from more complex or long-term datasets. Second, our policy includes something unique—language explicitly encouraging ‘Data Users’ to engage intellectually in true collaboration with ‘Data Generators’. Finally, the non-profit and NSF-supported Data Dryad (http://datadryad.org/) was designed with ecological and evolutionary data in mind, is easily integrated with our publisher's manuscript submission system, and is the repository of choice for many journals in environmental biology. While authors are free to archive in any repository that ensures data will be permanently archived, Biotropica will provide partial or complete waivers to offset the costs of archiving in Dryad to authors that cannot afford to do so. In closing we would like to thank the Editorial Board for its bold action in developing and implementing this policy, and we hope you will agree it is an important step in the right direction for Biotropica, our authors, and the advancement of tropical biology. Biotropica Data Archiving Policy (Effective 1 January 2016): Biotropica requires, as a condition for publication, that the data supporting the results in the paper and metadata describing them must be archived in an appropriate public archive such as Dryad (http://datadryad.org), Figshare (http://figshare.com), GenBank (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/), TreeBASE (http://www.treebase.org), or NCBI (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra). Authors may elect to make the data publicly available as soon as the article is published or, if the technology of the archive allows, embargo access to the data up to 3 yr after article publication. A statement describing Data Availability will be included in the manuscript as described in the instructions to authors. Exceptions to the required archiving of data may be granted at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief for studies that include sensitive information (e.g., the location of endangered species). Our Editorial explaining the motivation for this policy can be read at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-7429.2010.00652.x/abstract. A more comprehensive list of data repositories in which data can be archived is available at http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Data_repositories. Promoting a culture of collaboration with researchers who collect and archive data: The data collected by tropical biologists are often long-term, complex, and expensive to collect. The Board of Editors of Biotropica strongly encourages authors who reuse archived datasets to include as fully engaged collaborators the scientists who originally collected them. We feel this will greatly enhance the quality and impact of the resulting research by drawing on the data collector's profound insights into the natural history of the study system, reducing the risk of errors in novel analyses, and stimulating the cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural collaboration and training for which the ATBC and Biotropica are widely recognized.
Biodiversity and climate determine the functioning of Neotropical forests
(Wiley, 2017) Lourens Poorter; Masha T. van der Sande; E.J.M.M. Arets; Nataly Ascarrunz; Brian J. Enquist; Bryan Finegan; Juan Carlos Licona; Miguel Martínez‐Ramos; Lucas Mazzei; Jorge A. Meave
Abstract Aim Tropical forests account for a quarter of the global carbon storage and a third of the terrestrial productivity. Few studies have teased apart the relative importance of environmental factors and forest attributes for ecosystem functioning, especially for the tropics. This study aims to relate aboveground biomass (AGB) and biomass dynamics (i.e., net biomass productivity and its underlying demographic drivers: biomass recruitment, growth and mortality) to forest attributes (tree diversity, community‐mean traits and stand basal area) and environmental conditions (water availability, soil fertility and disturbance). Location Neotropics. Methods We used data from 26 sites, 201 1‐ha plots and >92,000 trees distributed across the Neotropics. We quantified for each site water availability and soil total exchangeable bases and for each plot three key community‐weighted mean functional traits that are important for biomass stocks and productivity. We used structural equation models to test the hypothesis that all drivers have independent, positive effects on biomass stocks and dynamics. Results Of the relationships analysed, vegetation attributes were more frequently associated significantly with biomass stocks and dynamics than environmental conditions (in 67 vs. 33% of the relationships). High climatic water availability increased biomass growth and stocks, light disturbance increased biomass growth, and soil bases had no effect. Rarefied tree species richness had consistent positive relationships with biomass stocks and dynamics, probably because of niche complementarity, but was not related to net biomass productivity. Community‐mean traits were good predictors of biomass stocks and dynamics. Main conclusions Water availability has a strong positive effect on biomass stocks and growth, and a future predicted increase in (atmospheric) drought might, therefore, potentially reduce carbon storage. Forest attributes, including species diversity and community‐weighted mean traits, have independent and important relationships with AGB stocks, dynamics and ecosystem functioning, not only in relatively simple temperate systems, but also in structurally complex hyper‐diverse tropical forests.
Does functional trait diversity predict above‐ground biomass and productivity of tropical forests? Testing three alternative hypotheses
(Wiley, 2014) Bryan Finegan; Marielos Peña‐Claros; Alexandre A. Oliveira; Nataly Ascarrunz; M. Syndonia Bret‐Harte; Geovana Carreño‐Rocabado; Fernando Casanoves; Sandra Dı́az; Paúl Eguiguren; Fernando Fernández‐Méndez
Summary Tropical forests are globally important, but it is not clear whether biodiversity enhances carbon storage and sequestration in them. We tested this relationship focusing on components of functional trait biodiversity as predictors. Data are presented for three rain forests in Bolivia, Brazil and Costa Rica. Initial above‐ground biomass and biomass increments of survivors, recruits and survivors + recruits (total) were estimated for trees ≥10 cm d.b.h. in 62 and 21 1.0‐ha plots, respectively. We determined relationships of biomass increments to initial standing biomass ( AGB i ), biomass‐weighted community mean values ( CWM ) of eight functional traits and four functional trait variety indices (functional richness, functional evenness, functional diversity and functional dispersion). The forest continuum sampled ranged from ‘slow’ stands dominated by trees with tough tissues and high AGB i , to ‘fast’ stands dominated by trees with soft, nutrient‐rich leaves, lighter woods and lower AGB i . We tested whether AGB i and biomass increments were related to the CWM trait values of the dominant species in the system (the biomass ratio hypothesis), to the variety of functional trait values (the niche complementarity hypothesis), or in the case of biomass increments, simply to initial standing biomass (the green soup hypothesis). CWM s were reasonable bivariate predictors of AGB i and biomass increments, with CWM specific leaf area SLA , CWM leaf nitrogen content, CWM force to tear the leaf, CWM maximum adult height H max and CWM wood specific gravity the most important. AGB i was also a reasonable predictor of the three measures of biomass increment. In best‐fit multiple regression models, CWM H max was the most important predictor of initial standing biomass AGB i . Only leaf traits were selected in the best models for biomass increment; CWM SLA was the most important predictor, with the expected positive relationship. There were no relationships of functional variety indices to biomass increments, and AGB i was the only predictor for biomass increments from recruits. Synthesis . We found no support for the niche complementarity hypothesis and support for the green soup hypothesis only for biomass increments of recruits. We have strong support for the biomass ratio hypothesis. CWM H max is a strong driver of ecosystem biomass and carbon storage and CWM SLA , and other CWM leaf traits are especially important for biomass increments and carbon sequestration.
Linking functional diversity and social actor strategies in a framework for interdisciplinary analysis of nature's benefits to society
(National Academy of Sciences, 2011) Sandra Dı́az; Fabien Quétier; Daniel Cáceres; Sarah F. Trainor; Natalia Pérez Harguindeguy; M. Syndonia Bret‐Harte; Bryan Finegan; Marielos Peña‐Claros; Lourens Poorter
The crucial role of biodiversity in the links between ecosystems and societies has been repeatedly highlighted both as source of wellbeing and as a target of human actions, but not all aspects of biodiversity are equally important to different ecosystem services. Similarly, different social actors have different perceptions of and access to ecosystem services, and therefore, they have different wants and capacities to select directly or indirectly for particular biodiversity and ecosystem characteristics. Their choices feed back onto the ecosystem services provided to all parties involved and in turn, affect future decisions. Despite this recognition, the research communities addressing biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human outcomes have yet to develop frameworks that adequately treat the multiple dimensions and interactions in the relationship. Here, we present an interdisciplinary framework for the analysis of relationships between functional diversity, ecosystem services, and human actions that is applicable to specific social environmental systems at local scales. We connect the mechanistic understanding of the ecological role of diversity with its social relevance: ecosystem services. The framework permits connections between functional diversity components and priorities of social actors using land use decisions and ecosystem services as the main links between these ecological and social components. We propose a matrix-based method that provides a transparent and flexible platform for quantifying and integrating social and ecological information and negotiating potentially conflicting land uses among multiple social actors. We illustrate the applicability of our framework by way of land use examples from temperate to subtropical South America, an area of rapid social and ecological change.
Old‐growth Neotropical forests are shifting in species and trait composition
(Wiley, 2016) Masha T. van der Sande; E.J.M.M. Arets; Marielos Peña‐Claros; Angela Luciana de Ávila; Anand Roopsind; Lucas Mazzei; Nataly Ascarrunz; Bryan Finegan; Alfredo Alarcón; Yasmani Cáceres‐Siani
Abstract Tropical forests have long been thought to be in stable state, but recent insights indicate that global change is leading to shifts in forest dynamics and species composition. These shifts may be driven by environmental changes such as increased resource availability, increased drought stress, and/or recovery from past disturbances. The relative importance of these drivers can be inferred from analyzing changes in trait values of tree communities. Here, we evaluate a decade of change in species and trait composition across five old‐growth Neotropical forests in Bolivia, Brazil, Guyana, and Costa Rica that cover large gradients in rainfall and soil fertility. To identify the drivers of compositional change, we used data from 29 permanent sample plots and measurements of 15 leaf, stem, and whole‐plant traits that are important for plant performance and should respond to global change drivers. We found that forests differ strongly in their community‐mean trait values, resulting from differences in soil fertility and annual rainfall seasonality. The abundance of deciduous species with high specific leaf area increases from wet to dry forests. The community‐mean wood density is high in the driest forests to protect xylem vessels against drought cavitation, and is high in nutrient‐poor forests to increase wood longevity and enhance nutrient residence time in the plant. Interestingly, the species composition changed over time in three of the forests, and the community‐mean wood density increased and the specific leaf area decreased in all forests, indicating that these forests are changing toward later successional stages dominated by slow‐growing, shade‐tolerant species. We did not see changes in other traits that could reflect responses to increased drought stress, such as increased drought deciduousness or decreased maximum adult size, or that could reflect increased resource availability ( CO 2 , rainfall, or nitrogen). Changes in species and trait composition in these forests are therefore most likely caused by recovery from past disturbances. These compositional changes may also lead to shifts in ecosystem processes, such as a lower carbon sequestration and “slower” forest dynamics.