Relationships between species richness and ecosystem services in Amazonian forests strongly influenced by biogeographical strata and forest types

Gijs Steur*, Hans ter Steege, René W. Verburg, Daniel Sabatier, Jean François Molino, Olaf S. Bánki, Hernan Castellanos, Juliana Stropp, Émile Fonty, Sofie Ruysschaert, David Galbraith, Michelle Kalamandeen, Tinde R. van Andel, Roel Brienen, Oliver L. Phillips, Kenneth J. Feeley, John Terborgh, Pita A. Verweij

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

    Abstract

    Despite increasing attention for relationships between species richness and ecosystem services, for tropical forests such relationships are still under discussion. Contradicting relationships have been reported concerning carbon stock, while little is known about relationships concerning timber stock and the abundance of non-timber forest product producing plant species (NTFP abundance). Using 151 1-ha plots, we related tree and arborescent palm species richness to carbon stock, timber stock and NTFP abundance across the Guiana Shield, and using 283 1-ha plots, to carbon stock across all of Amazonia. We analysed how environmental heterogeneity influenced these relationships, assessing differences across and within multiple forest types, biogeographic regions and subregions. Species richness showed significant relationships with all three ecosystem services, but relationships differed between forest types and among biogeographical strata. We found that species richness was positively associated to carbon stock in all biogeographical strata. This association became obscured by variation across biogeographical regions at the scale of Amazonia, resembling a Simpson’s paradox. By contrast, species richness was weakly or not significantly related to timber stock and NTFP abundance, suggesting that species richness is not a good predictor for these ecosystem services. Our findings illustrate the importance of environmental stratification in analysing biodiversity-ecosystem services relationships.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number5960
    Pages (from-to)1-11
    Number of pages11
    JournalScientific Reports
    Volume12
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 8 Apr 2022

    Bibliographical note

    Funding Information:
    This paper is the result of the research conducted by many scientists and research institutions in the Amazonian forests over the past 40 years. Without their hard work this analysis would have been impossible. We thank three anonymous reviewers for providing comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. G.S. was supported by grant 022.006.011 from the Dutch Research Council (‘NWO’) for the Graduate Programme ‘Nature Conservation, Management and Restoration’. D.S. & J-F.M. benefited from an “Investissement d’Avenir” grant managed by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (CEBA: ANR-10-LABX-25-01).

    Publisher Copyright:
    © 2022, The Author(s).

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