Browsing by Autor "Simon L. Lewis"

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Assessing MODIS Vegetation Continuous Fields tree cover product(collection 6): performance and applicability in tropical forests and savannas
(2021) Rahayu Adzhar; Douglas I. Kelley; Ning Dong; Mireia Torello Raventos; Elmar Veenendaal; Ted R. Feldpausch; Oliver L. Philips; Simon L. Lewis; Bonaventure Sonké; Herman Taedoumg
Abstract. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer vegetation continuous fields (MODIS VCF) Earth observation product is widely used to estimate forest cover changes, parameterise vegetation and Earth System models, and as a reference for validation or calibration where field data is limited. However, although limited independent validations of MODIS VCF have shown that MODIS VCF's accuracy decreases when estimating tree cover in sparsely-vegetated areas, such as in tropical savannas, no study has yet assessed the impact this may have on the VCF based tree cover distributions used by many in their research. Using tropical forest and savanna inventory data collected by the TROpical Biomes In Transition (TROBIT) project, we produce a series of corrections that take into account (i) the spatial disparity between the in-situ plot size and the MODIS VCF pixel, and (ii) the trees' spatial distribution within in-situ plots. We then applied our corrections to areas identified as forest or savanna in the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) land cover mapping product. All IGBP classes identified as savanna show substantial increases in cover after correction, indicating that the most recent version of MODIS VCF consistently underestimates woody cover in tropical savannas. We estimate that MODIS VCF could be underestimating tropical tree cover by between 9–15 %. Models that use VCF as their benchmark could be underestimating the carbon uptake in forest-savanna areas and misrepresenting forest-savanna dynamics. While more detailed in-situ field data is necessary to produce more accurate and reliable corrections, we recommend caution when using MODIS VCF in tropical savannas.
Comment on bg-2020-460
(2021) Rahayu Adzhar; Douglas I. Kelley; Ning Dong; Charles George; Mireia Torello Raventos; Elmar Veenendaal; Ted R. Feldpausch; Oliver L. Phillips; Simon L. Lewis; Bonaventure Sonké
Abstract. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Vegetation Continuous Fields (MODIS VCF) Earth observation product is widely used to estimate forest cover changes and to parameterize vegetation and Earth system models and as a reference for validation or calibration where field data are limited. However, although limited independent validations of MODIS VCF have shown that MODIS VCF's accuracy decreases when estimating tree cover in sparsely vegetated areas such as tropical savannas, no study has yet assessed the impact this may have on the VCF-based tree cover data used by many in their research. Using tropical forest and savanna inventory data collected by the Tropical Biomes in Transition (TROBIT) project, we produce a series of calibration scenarios that take into account (i)Â the spatial disparity between the in situ plot size and the MODIS VCF pixel and (ii)Â the trees' spatial distribution within in situ plots. To identify if a disparity also exists in products trained using VCF, we used a similar approach to evaluate the finer-scale Landsat Tree Canopy Cover (TCC) product. For MODIS VCF, we then applied our calibrations to areas identified as forest or savanna in the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) land cover mapping product. All IGBP classes identified as â savannaâ show substantial increases in cover after calibration, indicating that the most recent version of MODIS VCF consistently underestimates woody cover in tropical savannas. We also found that these biases are propagated in the finer-scale Landsat TCC. Our scenarios suggest that MODIS VCF accuracy can vary substantially, with tree cover underestimation ranging from 0â % to 29â %. Models that use MODIS VCF as their benchmark could therefore be underestimating the carbon uptake in forestâ savanna areas and misrepresenting forestâ savanna dynamics. Because of the limited in situ plot number, our results are designed to be used as an indicator of where the product is potentially more or less reliable. Until more in situ data are available to produce more accurate calibrations, we recommend caution when using uncalibrated MODIS VCF data in tropical savannas.
Competition influences tree growth, but not mortality, across environmental gradients in Amazonia and tropical Africa
(Wiley, 2020) Danaë M. A. Rozendaal; Oliver L. Phillips; Simon L. Lewis; Kofi Affum‐Baffoe; Esteban Álvarez‐Dávila; Ana Andrade; Luiz E. O. C. Aragão; Alejandro Araujo‐Murakami; Timothy R. Baker; Olaf Bánki
Competition among trees is an important driver of community structure and dynamics in tropical forests. Neighboring trees may impact an individual tree's growth rate and probability of mortality, but large-scale geographic and environmental variation in these competitive effects has yet to be evaluated across the tropical forest biome. We quantified effects of competition on tree-level basal area growth and mortality for trees ≥10-cm diameter across 151 ~1-ha plots in mature tropical forests in Amazonia and tropical Africa by developing nonlinear models that accounted for wood density, tree size, and neighborhood crowding. Using these models, we assessed how water availability (i.e., climatic water deficit) and soil fertility influenced the predicted plot-level strength of competition (i.e., the extent to which growth is reduced, or mortality is increased, by competition across all individual trees). On both continents, tree basal area growth decreased with wood density and increased with tree size. Growth decreased with neighborhood crowding, which suggests that competition is important. Tree mortality decreased with wood density and generally increased with tree size, but was apparently unaffected by neighborhood crowding. Across plots, variation in the plot-level strength of competition was most strongly related to plot basal area (i.e., the sum of the basal area of all trees in a plot), with greater reductions in growth occurring in forests with high basal area, but in Amazonia, the strength of competition also varied with plot-level wood density. In Amazonia, the strength of competition increased with water availability because of the greater basal area of wetter forests, but was only weakly related to soil fertility. In Africa, competition was weakly related to soil fertility and invariant across the shorter water availability gradient. Overall, our results suggest that competition influences the structure and dynamics of tropical forests primarily through effects on individual tree growth rather than mortality and that the strength of competition largely depends on environment-mediated variation in basal area.
Compositional response of Amazon forests to climate change
(Wiley, 2018) Adriane Esquivel‐Muelbert; Timothy R. Baker; Kyle G. Dexter; Simon L. Lewis; Roel Brienen; Ted R. Feldpausch; Jon Lloyd; Abel Monteagudo‐Mendoza; Luzmila Arroyo; Esteban Álvarez‐Dávila
Most of the planet's diversity is concentrated in the tropics, which includes many regions undergoing rapid climate change. Yet, while climate-induced biodiversity changes are widely documented elsewhere, few studies have addressed this issue for lowland tropical ecosystems. Here we investigate whether the floristic and functional composition of intact lowland Amazonian forests have been changing by evaluating records from 106 long-term inventory plots spanning 30 years. We analyse three traits that have been hypothesized to respond to different environmental drivers (increase in moisture stress and atmospheric CO2 concentrations): maximum tree size, biogeographic water-deficit affiliation and wood density. Tree communities have become increasingly dominated by large-statured taxa, but to date there has been no detectable change in mean wood density or water deficit affiliation at the community level, despite most forest plots having experienced an intensification of the dry season. However, among newly recruited trees, dry-affiliated genera have become more abundant, while the mortality of wet-affiliated genera has increased in those plots where the dry season has intensified most. Thus, a slow shift to a more dry-affiliated Amazonia is underway, with changes in compositional dynamics (recruits and mortality) consistent with climate-change drivers, but yet to significantly impact whole-community composition. The Amazon observational record suggests that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is driving a shift within tree communities to large-statured species and that climate changes to date will impact forest composition, but long generation times of tropical trees mean that biodiversity change is lagging behind climate change.
Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities
(Nature Portfolio, 2024) Declan L. M. Cooper; Simon L. Lewis; Martin J. P. Sullivan; Paulo Inácio Prado; Hans ter Steege; Nicolas Barbier; Ferry Slik; Bonaventure Sonké; Corneille E. N. Ewango; Stephen Adu‐Bredu
Trees structure the Earth's most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations1-6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth's 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world's most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees.
Diversity and carbon storage across the tropical forest biome
(Nature Portfolio, 2017) Martin J. P. Sullivan; Joey Talbot; Simon L. Lewis; Oliver L. Phillips; Lan Qie; Serge K. Begne; Jérôme Chave; Aida Cuní‐Sanchez; Wannes Hubau; Gabriela López‐González
Does the disturbance hypothesis explain the biomass increase in basin‐wide Amazon forest plot data?
(Wiley, 2009) Manuel Gloor; Oliver L. Phillips; Jon Lloyd; Simon L. Lewis; Yadvinder Malhi; Timothy R. Baker; Gabriela López‐González; J. Peacock; S. Almeida; A. C. ALVES De OLIVEIRA
Abstract Positive aboveground biomass trends have been reported from old‐growth forests across the Amazon basin and hypothesized to reflect a large‐scale response to exterior forcing. The result could, however, be an artefact due to a sampling bias induced by the nature of forest growth dynamics. Here, we characterize statistically the disturbance process in Amazon old‐growth forests as recorded in 135 forest plots of the RAINFOR network up to 2006, and other independent research programmes, and explore the consequences of sampling artefacts using a data‐based stochastic simulator. Over the observed range of annual aboveground biomass losses, standard statistical tests show that the distribution of biomass losses through mortality follow an exponential or near‐identical Weibull probability distribution and not a power law as assumed by others. The simulator was parameterized using both an exponential disturbance probability distribution as well as a mixed exponential–power law distribution to account for potential large‐scale blowdown events. In both cases, sampling biases turn out to be too small to explain the gains detected by the extended RAINFOR plot network. This result lends further support to the notion that currently observed biomass gains for intact forests across the Amazon are actually occurring over large scales at the current time, presumably as a response to climate change.
Drought Sensitivity of the Amazon Rainforest
(American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2009) Oliver L. Phillips; Luiz E. O. C. Aragão; Simon L. Lewis; Joshua B. Fisher; Jon Lloyd; Gabriela López‐González; Yadvinder Malhi; Abel Monteagudo; Julie Peacock; Carlos Alberto Quesada
Amazon forests are a key but poorly understood component of the global carbon cycle. If, as anticipated, they dry this century, they might accelerate climate change through carbon losses and changed surface energy balances. We used records from multiple long-term monitoring plots across Amazonia to assess forest responses to the intense 2005 drought, a possible analog of future events. Affected forest lost biomass, reversing a large long-term carbon sink, with the greatest impacts observed where the dry season was unusually intense. Relative to pre-2005 conditions, forest subjected to a 100-millimeter increase in water deficit lost 5.3 megagrams of aboveground biomass of carbon per hectare. The drought had a total biomass carbon impact of 1.2 to 1.6 petagrams (1.2 x 10(15) to 1.6 x 10(15) grams). Amazon forests therefore appear vulnerable to increasing moisture stress, with the potential for large carbon losses to exert feedback on climate change.
Drought–mortality relationships for tropical forests
(Wiley, 2010) Oliver L. Phillips; Geertje van der Heijden; Simon L. Lewis; Gabriela López‐González; Luiz E. O. C. Aragão; Jon Lloyd; Yadvinder Malhi; Abel Monteagudo; Samuel Almeida; Esteban Álvarez Dávila
*The rich ecology of tropical forests is intimately tied to their moisture status. Multi-site syntheses can provide a macro-scale view of these linkages and their susceptibility to changing climates. Here, we report pan-tropical and regional-scale analyses of tree vulnerability to drought. *We assembled available data on tropical forest tree stem mortality before, during, and after recent drought events, from 119 monitoring plots in 10 countries concentrated in Amazonia and Borneo. *In most sites, larger trees are disproportionately at risk. At least within Amazonia, low wood density trees are also at greater risk of drought-associated mortality, independent of size. For comparable drought intensities, trees in Borneo are more vulnerable than trees in the Amazon. There is some evidence for lagged impacts of drought, with mortality rates remaining elevated 2 yr after the meteorological event is over. *These findings indicate that repeated droughts would shift the functional composition of tropical forests toward smaller, denser-wooded trees. At very high drought intensities, the linear relationship between tree mortality and moisture stress apparently breaks down, suggesting the existence of moisture stress thresholds beyond which some tropical forests would suffer catastrophic tree mortality.
Field methods for sampling tree height for tropical forest biomass estimation
(Wiley, 2018) Martin J. P. Sullivan; Simon L. Lewis; Wannes Hubau; Lan Qie; Timothy R. Baker; Lindsay F. Banin; Jérôme Chave; Aida Cuní‐Sanchez; Ted R. Feldpausch; Gabriela López‐González
Quantifying the relationship between tree diameter and height is a key component of efforts to estimate biomass and carbon stocks in tropical forests. Although substantial site-to-site variation in height-diameter allometries has been documented, the time consuming nature of measuring all tree heights in an inventory plot means that most studies do not include height, or else use generic pan-tropical or regional allometric equations to estimate height.Using a pan-tropical dataset of 73 plots where at least 150 trees had in-field ground-based height measurements, we examined how the number of trees sampled affects the performance of locally derived height-diameter allometries, and evaluated the performance of different methods for sampling trees for height measurement.Using cross-validation, we found that allometries constructed with just 20 locally measured values could often predict tree height with lower error than regional or climate-based allometries (mean reduction in prediction error = 0.46 m). The predictive performance of locally derived allometries improved with sample size, but with diminishing returns in performance gains when more than 40 trees were sampled. Estimates of stand-level biomass produced using local allometries to estimate tree height show no over- or under-estimation bias when compared with biomass estimates using field measured heights. We evaluated five strategies to sample trees for height measurement, and found that sampling strategies that included measuring the heights of the ten largest diameter trees in a plot outperformed (in terms of resulting in local height-diameter models with low height prediction error) entirely random or diameter size-class stratified approaches.Our results indicate that even limited sampling of heights can be used to refine height-diameter allometries. We recommend aiming for a conservative threshold of sampling 50 trees per location for height measurement, and including the ten trees with the largest diameter in this sample.
Height-diameter input data and R-code to fit and assess height-diameter models, from 'Field methods for sampling tree height for tropical forest biomass estimation' in Methods in Ecology and Evolution
(2018) Martin Sullivan; Simon L. Lewis; Wannes Hubau; Lan Qie; Timothy R. Baker; Lindsay F. Banin; Jérôme Chave; Aida Cuní‐Sanchez; Ted R. Feldpausch; Gabriela López‐González
1. Quantifying the relationship between tree diameter and height is a key component of efforts to estimate biomass and carbon stocks in tropical forests. Although substantial site-to-site variation in height-diameter allometries has been documented, the time consuming nature of measuring all tree heights in an inventory plot means that most studies do not include height, or else use generic pan-tropical or regional allometric equations to estimate height. 2. Using a pan-tropical dataset of 73 plots where at least 150 trees had in-field ground-based height measurements, we examined how the number of trees sampled affects the performance of locally-derived height-diameter allometries, and evaluated the performance of different methods for sampling trees for height measurement. 3. Using cross-validation, we found that allometries constructed with just 20 locally measured values could often predict tree height with lower error than regional or climate-based allometries (mean reduction in prediction error = 0.46 m). The predictive performance of locally-derived allometries improved with sample size, but with diminishing returns in performance gains when more than 40 trees were sampled. Estimates of stand-level biomass produced using local allometries to estimate tree height show no over- or under-estimation bias when compared with estimates using measured heights. We evaluated five strategies to sample trees for height measurement, and found that sampling strategies that included measuring the heights of the ten largest diameter trees in a plot outperformed (in terms of resulting in local height-diameter models with low height prediction error) entirely random or diameter size-class stratified approaches. 4. Our results indicate that even remarkably limited sampling of heights can be used to refine height-diameter allometries. We recommend aiming for a conservative threshold of sampling 50 trees per location for height measurement, and including the ten trees with the largest diameter in this sample.
Increasing dominance of large lianas in Amazonian forests
(Nature Portfolio, 2002) Oliver L. Phillips; Ramsés V. Martínez; Luzmila Arroyo; T. R. Baker; Timothy J. Killeen; Simon L. Lewis; Y. Malhi; Abel Monteagudo Mendoza; David Neill; P. Núñez Vargas
Increasing tree size across Amazonia
(Nature Portfolio, 2025) Adriane Esquivel‐Muelbert; Rebecca Banbury Morgan; Roel Brienen; Emanuel Gloor; Simon L. Lewis; Aurora Levesley; Gabriela López‐González; Edmar Almeida de Oliveira; Esteban Álvarez‐Dávila; Joey Talbot
Long-term decline of the Amazon carbon sink
(Nature Portfolio, 2015) Roel Brienen; Oliver L. Phillips; Ted R. Feldpausch; Emanuel Gloor; Timothy R. Baker; Jon Lloyd; Gabriela López‐González; Abel Monteagudo‐Mendoza; Yadvinder Malhi; Simon L. Lewis
Long-term thermal sensitivity of Earth’s tropical forests
(American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2020) Martin J. P. Sullivan; Simon L. Lewis; Kofi Affum‐Baffoe; Carolina V. Castilho; Flávia R. C. Costa; Aida Cuní‐Sanchez; Corneille E. N. Ewango; Wannes Hubau; Beatriz Schwantes Marimon; Abel Monteagudo‐Mendoza
The sensitivity of tropical forest carbon to climate is a key uncertainty in predicting global climate change. Although short-term drying and warming are known to affect forests, it is unknown if such effects translate into long-term responses. Here, we analyze 590 permanent plots measured across the tropics to derive the equilibrium climate controls on forest carbon. Maximum temperature is the most important predictor of aboveground biomass (-9.1 megagrams of carbon per hectare per degree Celsius), primarily by reducing woody productivity, and has a greater impact per °C in the hottest forests (>32.2°C). Our results nevertheless reveal greater thermal resilience than observations of short-term variation imply. To realize the long-term climate adaptation potential of tropical forests requires both protecting them and stabilizing Earth's climate.
Markedly divergent estimates of <scp>A</scp> mazon forest carbon density from ground plots and satellites
(Wiley, 2014) Edward T. A. Mitchard; Ted R. Feldpausch; Roel J. W. Brienen; Gabriela López‐González; Abel Monteagudo; Timothy R. Baker; Simon L. Lewis; Jon Lloyd; Carlos Alberto Quesada; Manuel Gloor
Pantropical biomass maps are widely used by governments and by projects aiming to reduce deforestation using carbon offsets, but may have significant regional biases. Carbon-mapping techniques must be revised to account for the known ecological variation in tree wood density and allometry to create maps suitable for carbon accounting. The use of single relationships between tree canopy height and above-ground biomass inevitably yields large, spatially correlated errors. This presents a significant challenge to both the forest conservation and remote sensing communities, because neither wood density nor species assemblages can be reliably mapped from space.
Methods to estimate aboveground wood productivity from long-term forest inventory plots
(Elsevier BV, 2014) Joey Talbot; Simon L. Lewis; Gabriela López‐González; Roel Brienen; Abel Monteagudo; Timothy R. Baker; Ted R. Feldpausch; Yadvinder Malhi; Mark C. Vanderwel; Alejandro Araujo Murakami
MODIS Vegetation Continuous Fields tree cover needs calibrating in tropical savannas
(Copernicus Publications, 2022) Rahayu Adzhar; Douglas I. Kelley; Ning Dong; Charles George; Mireia Torello Raventos; Elmar Veenendaal; Ted R. Feldpausch; Oliver L. Phillips; Simon L. Lewis; Bonaventure Sonké
Abstract. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Vegetation Continuous Fields (MODIS VCF) Earth observation product is widely used to estimate forest cover changes and to parameterize vegetation and Earth system models and as a reference for validation or calibration where field data are limited. However, although limited independent validations of MODIS VCF have shown that MODIS VCF's accuracy decreases when estimating tree cover in sparsely vegetated areas such as tropical savannas, no study has yet assessed the impact this may have on the VCF-based tree cover data used by many in their research. Using tropical forest and savanna inventory data collected by the Tropical Biomes in Transition (TROBIT) project, we produce a series of calibration scenarios that take into account (i) the spatial disparity between the in situ plot size and the MODIS VCF pixel and (ii) the trees' spatial distribution within in situ plots. To identify if a disparity also exists in products trained using VCF, we used a similar approach to evaluate the finer-scale Landsat Tree Canopy Cover (TCC) product. For MODIS VCF, we then applied our calibrations to areas identified as forest or savanna in the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) land cover mapping product. All IGBP classes identified as “savanna” show substantial increases in cover after calibration, indicating that the most recent version of MODIS VCF consistently underestimates woody cover in tropical savannas. We also found that these biases are propagated in the finer-scale Landsat TCC. Our scenarios suggest that MODIS VCF accuracy can vary substantially, with tree cover underestimation ranging from 0 % to 29 %. Models that use MODIS VCF as their benchmark could therefore be underestimating the carbon uptake in forest–savanna areas and misrepresenting forest–savanna dynamics. Because of the limited in situ plot number, our results are designed to be used as an indicator of where the product is potentially more or less reliable. Until more in situ data are available to produce more accurate calibrations, we recommend caution when using uncalibrated MODIS VCF data in tropical savannas.
Pattern and process in Amazon tree turnover, 1976–2001
(Royal Society, 2004) Oliver L. Phillips; Timothy R. Baker; Luzmila Arroyo; Níro Higuchi; Timothy J. Killeen; William F. Laurance; Simon L. Lewis; Jon Lloyd; Yadvinder Malhi; Abel Monteagudo
Previous work has shown that tree turnover, tree biomass and large liana densities have increased in mature tropical forest plots in the late twentieth century. These results point to a concerted shift in forest ecological processes that may already be having significant impacts on terrestrial carbon stocks, fluxes and biodiversity. However, the findings have proved controversial, partly because a rather limited number of permanent plots have been monitored for rather short periods. The aim of this paper is to characterize regional-scale patterns of 'tree turnover' (the rate with which trees die and recruit into a population) by using improved datasets now available for Amazonia that span the past 25 years. Specifically, we assess whether concerted changes in turnover are occurring, and if so whether they are general throughout the Amazon or restricted to one region or environmental zone. In addition, we ask whether they are driven by changes in recruitment, mortality or both. We find that: (i) trees 10 cm or more in diameter recruit and die twice as fast on the richer soils of southern and western Amazonia than on the poorer soils of eastern and central Amazonia; (ii) turnover rates have increased throughout Amazonia over the past two decades; (iii) mortality and recruitment rates have both increased significantly in every region and environmental zone, with the exception of mortality in eastern Amazonia; (iv) recruitment rates have consistently exceeded mortality rates; (v) absolute increases in recruitment and mortality rates are greatest in western Amazonian sites; and (vi) mortality appears to be lagging recruitment at regional scales. These spatial patterns and temporal trends are not caused by obvious artefacts in the data or the analyses. The trends cannot be directly driven by a mortality driver (such as increased drought or fragmentation-related death) because the biomass in these forests has simultaneously increased. Our findings therefore indicate that long-acting and widespread environmental changes are stimulating the growth and productivity of Amazon forests.
Phylogenetic diversity of Amazonian tree communities
(Wiley, 2015) Eurídice N. Honorio Coronado; Kyle G. Dexter; R. Toby Pennington; Jérôme Chave; Simon L. Lewis; Miguel N. Alexiades; Esteban Álvarez‐Dávila; Atila Alves de Oliveira; Iêda Leão do Amaral; Alejandro Araujo‐Murakami
Abstract Aim To examine variation in the phylogenetic diversity ( PD ) of tree communities across geographical and environmental gradients in Amazonia. Location Two hundred and eighty‐three c . 1 ha forest inventory plots from across Amazonia. Methods We evaluated PD as the total phylogenetic branch length across species in each plot ( PD ss), the mean pairwise phylogenetic distance between species ( MPD ), the mean nearest taxon distance ( MNTD ) and their equivalents standardized for species richness (ses. PD ss, ses. MPD , ses. MNTD ). We compared PD of tree communities growing (1) on substrates of varying geological age; and (2) in environments with varying ecophysiological barriers to growth and survival. Results PD ss is strongly positively correlated with species richness ( SR ), whereas MNTD has a negative correlation. Communities on geologically young‐ and intermediate‐aged substrates (western and central Amazonia respectively) have the highest SR , and therefore the highest PD ss and the lowest MNTD . We find that the youngest and oldest substrates (the latter on the Brazilian and Guiana Shields) have the highest ses. PD ss and ses. MNTD . MPD and ses. MPD are strongly correlated with how evenly taxa are distributed among the three principal angiosperm clades and are both highest in western Amazonia. Meanwhile, seasonally dry tropical forest (SDTF) and forests on white sands have low PD , as evaluated by any metric. Main conclusions High ses. PD ss and ses. MNTD reflect greater lineage diversity in communities. We suggest that high ses. PD ss and ses. MNTD in western Amazonia results from its favourable, easy‐to‐colonize environment, whereas high values in the Brazilian and Guianan Shields may be due to accumulation of lineages over a longer period of time. White‐sand forests and SDTF are dominated by close relatives from fewer lineages, perhaps reflecting ecophysiological barriers that are difficult to surmount evolutionarily. Because MPD and ses. MPD do not reflect lineage diversity per se , we suggest that PD ss, ses. PD ss and ses. MNTD may be the most useful diversity metrics for setting large‐scale conservation priorities.