Increasing tree size across Amazonia

作者：Adriane Esquivel‐Muelbert, Rebecca Banbury Morgan, Roel Brienen, Emanuel Gloor, Simon L. Lewis, Kyle G. Dexter, Everton Almeida, Edmar Almeida de Oliveira, Esteban Álvarez‐Dávila, Atila Alves de Oliveira, Ana Andrade, Simone Aparecida Vieira, Luiz E. O. C. Aragão, Alejandro Araujo‐Murakami, E.J.M.M. Arets, Luzmila Arroyo, Gerardo Aymard-Corredor, Olaf Bánki, Plínio Barbosa de Camargo, Jorcely Barroso, Lilian Blanc, Foster Brown, José Luís Camargo, Wendeson Castro, Víctor Chama Moscoso, Jérôme Chave, Ezequiel Chavez, James A. Comiskey, Antônio C. L. da Costa, Jhon del Águila Pasquel, Géraldine Derroire, Anthony Di Fiore, Sophie Fauset, Ted R. Feldpausch, Gerardo Flores Llampazo, René Guillén Villaroel, Rafael Herrera, Niro Higuchi, Eurídice Honorio Coronado, Isau Huamantupa‐Chuquimaco, Walter Huaraca Huasco, E. Jiménez, Timothy J. Killeen, Susan G. W. Laurance, William F. Laurance, Aurora Levesley, Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez, Yadvinder Malhi, Beatriz Schwantes Marimon, Ben Hur Marimon Junior, Simone Matias Reis, Casimiro Mendoza Bautista, Irina Polo, Abel Monteagudo Mendoza, Paulo Sérgio Morandi, Adriano Nogueira Lima, Percy Núñez Vargas, Nadir Pallqui Camacho, Alexander Parada Gutierrez, Julie Peacock, María Cristina Peñuela-Mora, Georgia Pickavance, John Pipoly, Nigel C. A. Pitman, Adriana Prieto, Carlos Quesada, Freddy Ramírez Arévalo, Maxime Réjou-Méchain, Zorayda Restrepo Correa, Rocio Rojas, Lily O. Rodríguez, Anand Roopsind, Rafael Paiva Salomão, Natalino Silva, Javier Silva Espejo, Marcos Silveira, Juliana Stropp, Joey Talbot, Hans ter Steege, John Terborgh, Raquel Thomas, Luis Valenzuela Gamarra, Peter van der Hout, Rodolfo Vásquez, Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira, Emilio Vilanova, Roderick Zagt, Timothy R. Baker, Oliver L. Phillips · 发表于：Nature Plants · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1038/s41477-025-02097-4 · 被引用次数：5 · 研究领域：Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Plant and animal studies

Abstract Climate change and increasing availability of resources such as carbon dioxide are modifying forest functioning worldwide, but the effects of these changes on forest structure are unclear. As additional resources become available, for example, through CO 2 fertilization or nitrogen deposition, large trees, with greater access to light, may be expected to gain further advantages. Conversely, smaller light-suppressed trees might benefit more if their light compensation point changes, while bigger trees may be the most negatively impacted by increasing heat and drought. We assessed recent changes in the structure of Earth’s largest tropical forest by analysing 30 years of Amazonian tree records across 188 mature forest plots. We find that, at a stand level, trees have become larger over time, with mean tree basal area increasing by 3.3% per decade (95% CI 2.4; 4.1). Larger trees have increased in both number and size, yet we observed similar rates of relative size gain in large and small trees. This evidence is consistent with a resource-driven boost for larger trees but also a reduction in suppression among smaller trees. These results, especially the persistence and consistency of tree size increases across Amazonian forest plots, communities and regions, indicate that any negative impacts of climate change on forests and large trees here have so far been mitigated by the positive effects of increased resources.