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A transcontinental comparison of the diversity and composition of tropical forest understory herb assemblages

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Abstract

Although tropical forests are renowned for their high plant diversity, to date there has been no global quantitative evaluation of the local species richness of terrestrial forest herbs in tropical forests. In this paper, richness and composition of terrestrial herb assemblages is compared in tropical forests of America, Africa and South East Asia. We established 86 non-continuous transects of 445 m each. Herb species richness was analysed and compared to six environmental parameters using minimal adequate regression models and simultaneous autoregressive models. At the global scale, we found a close relationship between herb species richness and temperature parameters, with no differences between continents. The subdivision into three main taxonomic groups (ferns, monocots, dicots) showed that each group has distinct relations to environmental factors and differences in richness between continents. Most of the 72 families found have pantropical distributions but 12, 11, and 16 families were significantly over-represented in America, Africa, and Asia, respectively. Although total species richness was closely related to climatic factors, ferns, monocots and dicots were represented by distinct sets of families with varying species richness on each continent. Which species are found at a given site may thus reflect group-specific evolutionary and historical factors.

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Acknowledgments

We thank R. Linares-Palomino for making available to us the transect data from La Selva in Costa Rica and Sandra Willinghöfer for her help during the field work in Sulawesi. Two anonymous reviewers provided important comments on the manuscript. The study was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG, SFB 552). The identification of herbaceous species was conducted partly at the Herbarium of Leiden supported by the SYNTHESYS project (NL-TAF-3536).

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  1. Thomas Delhotal

    Present address: , 34 rue du Moulin, Courrege, 31320, Castanet-Tolosan, France

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hazelwood Close 94, CB4 3SP, Cambridge, UK

    Daniele Cicuzza

  2. Systematic Botany, University of Zurich, Zollikerstrasse 107, 8008, Zurich, Switzerland

    Daniele Cicuzza & Michael Kessler

  3. Centro de Investigaciones Tropicales, Universidad Veracruzana, Interior de la Ex-hacienda Lucas Martín, Privada de Araucarias s/n, Col. 21 de Marzo, 91019, Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico

    Thorsten Krömer

  4. Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Blindern, P.O. Box 1172, 0318, Oslo, Norway

    Axel Dalberg Poulsen

  5. Systematic Botany and Mycology, LMU University of Munich, Menzinger Straße 67, 80638, Munich, Germany

    Stefan Abrahamczyk

  6. UFR des Sciences de la Vie et de la Terre, Université Paul Sabatier-Toulouse III, 118 route de Narbonne, Toulouse, 31062, CEDEX 9, France

    Thomas Delhotal

  7. International Tropical Conservation Foundations (ITCF), Moosmatte 1, 3210, Kerzers, Switzerland

    Henry Martinez Piedra

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  1. Daniele Cicuzza
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Correspondence to Daniele Cicuzza.

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Cicuzza, D., Krömer, T., Poulsen, A.D. et al. A transcontinental comparison of the diversity and composition of tropical forest understory herb assemblages. Biodivers Conserv 22, 755–772 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-013-0447-y

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