SPATIAL VARIATION IN TREE SPECIES COMPOSITION ACROSS TROPICAL FORESTS: PATTERN AND PROCESS

OVERVIEW Understanding the causes of spatial variation in floristic composition is one of the overarching goals of plant ecology. This goal has been challenged by the difficulty of unfolding the spatial component of biodiversity, and of interpreting it biologically, especially in the tropics. Hence until recently, virtually nothing was known about the real impact of land-use change on tropical biodiversity, in spite of the rapid rates of tropical deforestation and habitat loss. This picture has changed dramatically over the past few years, with the development of large-scale inventory projects and the implementation of methods for quantitative analysis of floristic data. Here, I provide an overview of the definitions of spatial floristic turnover, or beta-diversity, and a statistical toolkit for the analysis of beta-diversity. I also contrast ecological theories which underlie the statistical tests. I then review recent empirical studies on plant beta-diversity in tropical forests. This panorama shows that a consensus on field and analytical methods is now being reached. There is a need for careful reinterpretations of published ecological patterns in light of well-formulated ecological hypotheses. Only through ambitious field studies and collaborative approaches will further progress be achieved in this fascinating research area.

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