Balslev Henrik, Kristiansen Søren M, Muscarella Robert
Section for Ecoinformatics & Biodiversity, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, DK-8000, Denmark.
Department of Geoscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, DK-8000, Denmark.
Ecology. 2019 Dec;100(12):e02841. doi: 10.1002/ecy.2841. Epub 2019 Sep 6.
Western Amazonia is a global biodiversity hotspot that encompasses extensive variation in geologic, climatic, and biotic features. Palms (Arecaceae) are among the most diverse and iconic groups of plants in the region with more than 150 species that exhibit extraordinary variation of geographical distributions, regional abundance patterns, and life history strategies and growth forms, and provide myriad ecosystem services. Understanding the ecological and evolutionary drivers that underpin palm distribution and abundance patterns may shed light on the evolution and ecology of the tropical forest biomes more generally. Edaphic conditions, in particular, are increasingly recognized as critical drivers of tropical plant diversity and distributions but data deficiencies inhibit our understanding of plant-soil relationships at broad scales, especially in the tropics. We present data from 546, 0.25-ha (5 × 500 m) georeferenced transects located throughout western Amazonia where all individual palms were identified, counted, and assigned to a life-history stage. Several environmental covariates were recorded along each transect and surface soil samples were collected from multiple points in N = 464 of transects. Altogether, the transects include 532,602 individuals belonging to 135 species. Variation among transects in terms of palm species richness and abundance is associated with major habitat types and soil properties. The soil properties including pH, acidity, all macronutrients for all samples, and texture, carbon, nitrogen, and micronutrients for some transects vary substantially across the study area, providing insight to broad-scale variation of tropical surface soils. The data provided here will help advance our understanding of plant distributions and abundance patterns, and associations with soil conditions. No copyright restrictions are associated with this data set but please cite this paper if data are used for publication.
西亚马逊地区是一个全球生物多样性热点地区，涵盖了地质、气候和生物特征的广泛变化。棕榈科植物是该地区最多样化且具标志性的植物类群之一，有超过150个物种，它们在地理分布、区域丰度模式、生活史策略和生长形式方面表现出非凡的差异，并提供了无数的生态系统服务。了解支撑棕榈分布和丰度模式的生态和进化驱动因素，可能会更全面地揭示热带森林生物群落的进化和生态。特别是土壤条件，越来越被认为是热带植物多样性和分布的关键驱动因素，但数据不足阻碍了我们对大尺度上植物与土壤关系的理解，尤其是在热带地区。我们展示了来自西亚马逊地区546个（每个面积为0.25公顷，即5×500米）地理定位样带的数据，在这些样带中，所有的棕榈个体都被识别、计数并划分到一个生活史阶段。沿着每个样带记录了几个环境协变量，并从464个样带的多个点采集了表层土壤样本。这些样带总共包括属于135个物种的532,602个个体。样带间棕榈物种丰富度和丰度的差异与主要栖息地类型和土壤特性有关。包括所有样本的pH值、酸度、所有大量营养素，以及部分样带的质地、碳、氮和微量营养素在内的土壤特性，在整个研究区域内有很大差异，这为热带表层土壤的大尺度变化提供了见解。这里提供的数据将有助于推进我们对植物分布和丰度模式以及与土壤条件关联的理解。此数据集不存在版权限制，但如果数据用于发表，请引用本文。
