Biased-corrected richness estimates for the Amazonian tree flora

Hans ter Steege (1) , Paulo Inácio Prado (2) , Renato a F de Lima , Edwin Pos (3) , Diogenes de Andrade , Lima Filho , Rafael P Salomão (4) , Ieda Amaral (5) , Francisca Dionizia de Almeida Matos (6) , Carolina Castilho (7) , Oliver Phillips (8) , Juan Ernesto Guevara , Marcelo de Jesus Veiga Carim , Jesus Veiga , Dairon Cárdenas López , William E Magnusson (9) , Florian Wittmann (10) , Maria Pires Martins , Daniel Sabatier (11) , Mariana Victória Irume , José Renan Da , Silva Guimarães , Jean-François Molino (11) , Olaf Banki (12) , Maria Teresa Fernandez Piedade 18 , Nigel C A Pitman 19 , José Ferreira Ramos , Abel Monteagudo Mendoza , Eduardo Martins Venticinque , Bruno Garcia Luize , Núñez Vargas , Thiago Sanna , Freire Silva , Evlyn Márcia , Moraes De , Leão Novo , Neidiane Farias , Costa Reis , John Terborgh (13) , Angelo Gilberto Manzatto , Katia Regina Casula , Euridice N Honorio Coronado , Juan Carlos Montero , Alvaro Duque (14) , Flávia R C Costa , Nicolás Castaño Arboleda , Jochen Schöngart (15) , Charles Eugene Zartman , Timothy J Killeen , Beatriz S Marimon , Ben Hur Marimon-Junior , Rodolfo Vasquez (16) , Bonifacio Mostacedo (17) , Layon O Demarchi , Ted R Feldpausch , Julien Engel (11) , Pascal Petronelli (18) , Chris Baraloto (18) , Rafael L Assis , Hernán Castellanos (19) , Marcelo Simon (20) , Marcelo Brilhante de Medeiros , Adriano Quaresma , Susan Laurance (21) , Lorena M Rincón , Ana Andrade (6) , Thaiane R Sousa , José Luís Camargo 42 , Juliana Schietti (6) , William F Laurance , Helder Lima de Queiroz , Henrique Eduardo Mendonça Nascimento , Maria Celeste Lopes (22) , Emanuelle de Sousa Farias , José Leonardo , Lima Magalhães , Roel Brienen (23) , Gerardo A. Aymard (24) , C 49 , Juan David , Cardenas Revilla , Ima Célia , Guimarães Vieira , Bruno Barçante , Ladvocat Cintra 50 , Pablo R Stevenson , Yuri Oliveira Feitosa 52 , Joost F Duivenvoorden , Hugo F Mogollón , Alejandro Araujo-Murakami (25) , Leandro Valle Ferreira , José Lozada (26) , James A Comiskey , José Julio de Toledo , Gabriel Damasco (27) , Nallarett Dávila (28) , Aline Lopes , Roosevelt Garcia-Villacorta (29) , Freddie Draper , Alberto Vicentini , Fernando Cornejo Valverde (30) , Jon Lloyd (31) , Vitor H F Gomes , David Neill (32) , Alfonso Alonso (33) , Francisco Dallmeier (34) , Fernanda Coelho de Souza (21) , Rogério Gribel (35) , Luzmila Arroyo (25) , Fernanda Antunes Carvalho , Daniel Praia , Portela de Aguiar , Dário Dantas Do Amaral , Marcelo Petratti Pansonato , Kenneth J Feeley , Erika Berenguer (36) , Paul V A Fine 60 , Marcelino Guedes (37) , Jos Barlow (36) , Joice Ferreira 48 , Boris Villa , Maria Mc Cristina (38) , Peñuela Mora , Eliana Jimenez (39) , Juan Licona (40) , Carlos Cerón (41) , Raquel Thomas (42) , Paul Maas (43) , Marcos Silveira (44) , Terry W Henkel (45) , Juliana Stropp (1) , Marcos Ríos Paredes 85 , Kyle G Dexter , Doug Daly (46) , Tim R Baker , Isau Huamantupa-Chuquimaco (47) , William Milliken (48) , Toby Pennington , J. Tello (29) , José Luis (49) , Marcelo Pena , Carlos A Peres 92 , Bente Klitgaard , Alfredo Fuentes (50) , Miles R Silman , Anthony Di Fiore 96 , Patricio von Hildebrand (51) , Jérôme Chave (52) , Tinde R van Andel , Renato Richard Hilário , Juan Fernando Phillips , Gonzalo Rivas-Torres (53) , Janaína Costa Noronha , Adriana Prieto (39) , Therany Gonzales (54) , Rainiellene De , Sá Carpanedo , George Pepe , Gallardo Gonzales , Ricardo Zárate Gómez , Domingos De , Jesus Rodrigues , Egleé L Zent , Ademir R Ruschel

1 Institute of Environmental Biology, Section Plant Ecology and Biodiversity,
2 Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo
3 Universiteit Utrecht / Utrecht University [Utrecht]
4 MPEG - Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi [Belém, Brésil]
5 Projeto TEAM-Manaus
6 INPA - Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia = National Institute of Amazonian Research
7 Centro de Pesquisa Agroflorestal de Roraima
8 Ecology and Global Change, School of Geography
9 Coordenac Bao de Pesquisas em Ecologia
10 Department of Biochemistry [Mainz]
11 UMR AMAP - Botanique et Modélisation de l'Architecture des Plantes et des Végétations
12 IBED - Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics
13 Division of Marine Science and Conservation, Nicholas School of the Environment
14 Departamento de Ciencias Forestales
15 MPIC - Max Planck Institute for Chemistry
16 Missouri Botanical Garden
17 Universidad Autonoma Gabriel René Moreno
18 UMR ECOFOG - Ecologie des forêts de Guyane
19 Universidad Nacional Experimental de Guayana
20 Genetic resources and biotechnology
21 Chercheur indépendant
22 CNC - Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC)
23 Sch Geog
24 Herbario Universitario PORT
25 UAGRM - Universidad Autonoma Gabriel René Moreno
26 LIS - Laboratoire Interfaces Sensorielles
27 Department of Integrative Biology
28 IB - Department of Integrative Biology [Berkeley]
29 Edin. - University of Edinburgh
30 Andes to Amazon Biodiversity Program [Madre de Dios]
31 MPI-BGC - Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
32 Universidad Estatal Amazonica
33 Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute
34 Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute,
35 Coordenacao Biodiversidade
36 Lancaster Environment Centre
37 Embrapa Amapa
38 CREPAL - CREPAL - Centre de recherches sur les pays lusophones - EA 3421
39 Universidad Nacional de Colombia
40 IBIF - Instituto Boliviano de Investigacion Forestal
41 Herbario Nacional del Ecuador
42 Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development
43 Department of Botany
44 UFAC - Universidade Federal do Acre
45 HSU - Humboldt State University
46 NYBG - New York Botanical Garden
47 UNSAAC - Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco
48 Royal Botanic Gardens [Kew]
49 Faculté de Pharmacie
50 Herbario Nacional de Bolivia
51 Fundacion Puerto Rastrojo
52 EDB - Evolution et Diversité Biologique
53 USFQ - Universidad San Francisco de Quito
54 Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research Foundation

Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia is best approximated by a logseries with aggregated individuals, where aggregation increases with rarity. By averaging several methods to estimate total richness, we confirm that over 15,000 tree species are expected to occur in Amazonia. We also show that using ten times the number of plots would result in an increase to just ~50% of those 15,000 estimated species. To get a more complete sample of all tree species, rigorous field campaigns may be needed but the number of trees in Amazonia will remain an estimate for years to come.

Mots clés: Species richness; Amazonian forest

Domaines: Systématique, phylogénie et taxonomie; Ecosystèmes; Botanique; Biodiversité et Ecologie

Hans ter Steege, Paulo Inácio Prado, Renato a F de Lima, Edwin Pos, Diogenes de Andrade, et al.. Biased-corrected richness estimates for the Amazonian tree flora. Scientific Reports, 2020, 10, pp.10130. ⟨10.1038/s41598-020-66686-3⟩. ⟨hal-02883980⟩