Reconciling the contribution of environmental and stochastic structuring of tropical forest diversity through the lens of imaging spectroscopy

Boris Bongalov; David F. R. P. Burslem; Tommaso Jucker; Samuel E. D. Thompson; James Rosindell; Tom Swinfield; Reuben Nilus; Daniel Clewley; Oliver L.  Phillips; David A. Coomes

doi:10.1111/ele.13357

Reconciling the contribution of environmental and stochastic structuring of tropical forest diversity through the lens of imaging spectroscopy

Boris Bongalov (Corresponding Author), David F. R. P. Burslem, Tommaso Jucker, Samuel E. D. Thompson, James Rosindell, Tom Swinfield, Reuben Nilus, Daniel Clewley, Oliver L. Phillips, David A. Coomes (Corresponding Author)

Aberdeen Centre For Environmental Sustainability

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Abstract

Both niche and stochastic dispersal processes structure the extraordinary diversity of tropical plants, but determining their relative contributions has proven challenging. We address this question by using airborne imaging spectroscopy to estimate canopy β-diversity for an extensive region of a Bornean rainforest and challenge these data with models incorporating niches and dispersal. We show that remotely-sensed and field-derived estimates of pairwise dissimilarity in community composition are closely matched, proving the applicability of imaging spectroscopy to provide β-diversity data for entire landscapes of over 1000 ha containing contrasting forest types. Our model reproduces the empirical data well and shows that the ecological processes maintaining tropical forest diversity are scale dependent. Patterns of β-diversity are shaped by stochastic dispersal processes acting locally whilst environmental processes act over a wider range of scales.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1608-1619
Number of pages	12
Journal	Ecology Letters
Volume	22
Issue number	10
Early online date	26 Jul 2019
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13357 https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8427998.v1
Publication status	Published - Oct 2019

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement:: Airborne data are available via the CEDA archive (project code MA14/21); plot data is archived on forestplots (Lopez‐Gonzalez et al., 2011) (codes SEP‐03, 04, 05, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12) and from the Figshare Repository: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8427998.v1.

Acknowledgements:
We are grateful to the Sabah Forestry Department and the Sabah Biodiversity Centre for allowing us to conduct our research in Sepilok as well as to the South East Asia Rainforest Research Partnership for the logistical support. This work was supported by a grant through the Human Modified Tropical Forests programme of NERC (NE/K016377/1) as well as a Cambridge NERC-DTP studentship. Resurvey of the field plots was supported by an ERC Advanced Grant (291585, T-FORCES) awarded to O.L.P. S.E.D.T was supported by the Joint Imperial-NUS PhD Scholarship. J.R. was supported by fellowships from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) (NE/I021179, NE/L011611/1). We thank members of the NERC Airborne Research Facility and Data Analysis Node for the collection and processing of the data (project code MA14/21). Data processing was aided by the NERCs JASMIN computing cluster and the Imperial College London computing facilities. We would also like to thank Felix May for his advice during the early stages of this study. The quality of this manuscript was greatly improved by the comments of Gabriel Arellano and two other anonymous Reviewers.

Keywords

neutral theory
tropical forest
niche
hyperspectral
LiDAR
beta diversity
dispersal
BIODIVERSITY
REGRESSION
NICHE
Beta diversity
PATTERNS
COMMUNITIES
UAV-LIDAR
DISTRIBUTIONS
NEUTRAL MODELS
FUNCTIONAL TRAITS
BETA-DIVERSITY

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Bongalov_et_al-2019-Ecology_Letters_VoR
©2019 The Authors.Ecology Letters published by CNRS and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use,distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Final published version, 1.66 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

Bongalov, B., Burslem, D. F. R. P., Jucker, T., Thompson, S. E. D., Rosindell, J., Swinfield, T., Nilus, R., Clewley, D., Phillips, O. L., & Coomes, D. A. (2019). Reconciling the contribution of environmental and stochastic structuring of tropical forest diversity through the lens of imaging spectroscopy. Ecology Letters, 22(10), 1608-1619. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13357, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8427998.v1

Bongalov, B, Burslem, DFRP, Jucker, T, Thompson, SED, Rosindell, J, Swinfield, T, Nilus, R, Clewley, D, Phillips, OL & Coomes, DA 2019, 'Reconciling the contribution of environmental and stochastic structuring of tropical forest diversity through the lens of imaging spectroscopy', Ecology Letters, vol. 22, no. 10, pp. 1608-1619. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13357, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8427998.v1

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title = "Reconciling the contribution of environmental and stochastic structuring of tropical forest diversity through the lens of imaging spectroscopy",

abstract = "Both niche and stochastic dispersal processes structure the extraordinary diversity of tropical plants, but determining their relative contributions has proven challenging. We address this question by using airborne imaging spectroscopy to estimate canopy β-diversity for an extensive region of a Bornean rainforest and challenge these data with models incorporating niches and dispersal. We show that remotely-sensed and field-derived estimates of pairwise dissimilarity in community composition are closely matched, proving the applicability of imaging spectroscopy to provide β-diversity data for entire landscapes of over 1000 ha containing contrasting forest types. Our model reproduces the empirical data well and shows that the ecological processes maintaining tropical forest diversity are scale dependent. Patterns of β-diversity are shaped by stochastic dispersal processes acting locally whilst environmental processes act over a wider range of scales.",

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author = "Boris Bongalov and Burslem, {David F. R. P.} and Tommaso Jucker and Thompson, {Samuel E. D.} and James Rosindell and Tom Swinfield and Reuben Nilus and Daniel Clewley and Phillips, {Oliver L.} and Coomes, {David A.}",

note = "Data Availability Statement:: Airborne data are available via the CEDA archive (project code MA14/21); plot data is archived on forestplots (Lopez‐Gonzalez et al., 2011) (codes SEP‐03, 04, 05, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12) and from the Figshare Repository: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8427998.v1. Acknowledgements: We are grateful to the Sabah Forestry Department and the Sabah Biodiversity Centre for allowing us to conduct our research in Sepilok as well as to the South East Asia Rainforest Research Partnership for the logistical support. This work was supported by a grant through the Human Modified Tropical Forests programme of NERC (NE/K016377/1) as well as a Cambridge NERC-DTP studentship. Resurvey of the field plots was supported by an ERC Advanced Grant (291585, T-FORCES) awarded to O.L.P. S.E.D.T was supported by the Joint Imperial-NUS PhD Scholarship. J.R. was supported by fellowships from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) (NE/I021179, NE/L011611/1). We thank members of the NERC Airborne Research Facility and Data Analysis Node for the collection and processing of the data (project code MA14/21). Data processing was aided by the NERCs JASMIN computing cluster and the Imperial College London computing facilities. We would also like to thank Felix May for his advice during the early stages of this study. The quality of this manuscript was greatly improved by the comments of Gabriel Arellano and two other anonymous Reviewers.",

year = "2019",

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doi = "10.1111/ele.13357",

language = "English",

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AU - Burslem, David F. R. P.

AU - Jucker, Tommaso

AU - Thompson, Samuel E. D.

AU - Rosindell, James

AU - Swinfield, Tom

AU - Nilus, Reuben

AU - Clewley, Daniel

AU - Phillips, Oliver L.

AU - Coomes, David A.

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N2 - Both niche and stochastic dispersal processes structure the extraordinary diversity of tropical plants, but determining their relative contributions has proven challenging. We address this question by using airborne imaging spectroscopy to estimate canopy β-diversity for an extensive region of a Bornean rainforest and challenge these data with models incorporating niches and dispersal. We show that remotely-sensed and field-derived estimates of pairwise dissimilarity in community composition are closely matched, proving the applicability of imaging spectroscopy to provide β-diversity data for entire landscapes of over 1000 ha containing contrasting forest types. Our model reproduces the empirical data well and shows that the ecological processes maintaining tropical forest diversity are scale dependent. Patterns of β-diversity are shaped by stochastic dispersal processes acting locally whilst environmental processes act over a wider range of scales.

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JO - Ecology Letters

JF - Ecology Letters

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Reconciling the contribution of environmental and stochastic structuring of tropical forest diversity through the lens of imaging spectroscopy

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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Reconciling the contribution of niche and stochastic structuring of tropical forest diversity through the lens of imaging spectroscopy

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Reconciling the contribution of environmental and stochastic structuring of tropical forest diversity through the lens of imaging spectroscopy

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Bibliographical note

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Reconciling the contribution of niche and stochastic structuring of tropical forest diversity through the lens of imaging spectroscopy

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