Published in

National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 8(115), p. 1837-1842, 2018

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1714977115

Phylogenetic classification of the world’s tropical forests

DOI: 10.17528/cifor/data.00077

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Phylogenetic classification of the world's tropical forests

Journal article published in 2018 by J. W. Ferry Slik ORCID, Eduardo Schmidt Eler, Queila Souza Garcia, Janet Franklin, Khalid Rehman Hakeem, Richard Field, Eudardo A. Pérez-Garcia, José Roberto Rodrigues Pinto, Anitha K., Francisco Mora, Eduardo van den Berg ORCID, Polyanna da Conceição Bispo ORCID, Shauna-Lee Chai, Robin L. Chazdon, Shengbin Chen and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Red circle
Preprint: archiving forbidden
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Knowledge about the biogeographic affinities of the world's tropical forests helps to better understand regional differences in forest structure, diversity, composition, and dynamics. Such understanding will enable anticipation of region-specific responses to global environmental change. Modern phylogenies, in combination with broad coverage of species inventory data, now allow for global biogeographic analyses that take species evolutionary distance into account. Here we present a classification of the world's tropical forests based on their phylogenetic similarity. We identify five principal floristic regions and their floristic relationships: (i) Indo-Pacific, (ii) Subtropical, (iii) African, (iv) American, and (v) Dry forests. Our results do not support the traditional neo- versus paleotropical forest division but instead separate the combined American and African forests from their Indo-Pacific counterparts. We also find indications for the existence of a global dry forest region, with representatives in America, Africa, Madagascar, and India. Additionally, a northern-hemisphere Subtropical forest region was identified with representatives in Asia and America, providing support for a link between Asian and American northern-hemisphere forests.