Estimating species richness in hyper-diverse large tree communities

H. ter Steege, D. Sabatier, S. Mota de Oliveira, W.E. Magnusson, J.-F. Molino, V. F. Gomes, E. T. Pos, R. P. Salomão

    Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

    Abstract

    Species richness estimation is one of the most widely used analyses carried out by ecologists, and nonparametric estimators are probably the most used techniques to carry out such estimations. We tested the assumptions and results of nonparametric estimators and those of a logseries approach to species richness estimation for simulated tropical forests and five data sets from the field. We conclude that nonparametric estimators are not suitable to estimate species richness in tropical forests, where sampling intensity is usually low and richness is high, because the assumptions of the methods do not meet the sampling strategy used in most studies. The logseries, while also requiring substantial sampling, is much more effective in estimating species richness than commonly used nonparametric estimators, and its assumptions better match the way field data is being collected.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1444-1454
    Number of pages11
    JournalEcology
    Volume98
    Issue number5
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2017

    Bibliographical note

    M1 - 5

    Funding

    We thank Carolina V. Castilho for the use of the RD plot data. H. ter Steege, V. F. Gomes, and R. Salomão are supported by grant 407232/2013-3–PVE–MEC/MCTI/CAPES/CNPq/FAPs; D. Sabatier and J. F. Molino are supported by a BGF grant for the project DynForDiv from the French Ministry of Ecology (MEDDE) and an “Investissement d'Avenir” grant managed by Agence Nationale de la Recherche (CEBA, ref. ANR-10-LABX-0025), S. M. de Oliveira is supported by the “Alberta Mennega Stichting.” W. E. Magnusson was supported by through INCT-CENBAM and PPBio-AmOc. The Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA) provided logistical support to INCT-CENBAM.

    FundersFunder number
    BGF
    French Ministry of Ecology
    INCT-CENBAM
    Agence Nationale de la RechercheANR-10-LABX-0025
    Ministère de l'Écologie, du Développement Durable et de l'Énergie

      Keywords

      • Amazon logseries nonparametric estimators species estimation species richness tropical forests

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