WashU biologists Toby Pennington and Jonathan Myers contributed to an ambitious study on South America’s tropical forests, revealing important shifts in biodiversity.
The biodiversity of trees in the Amazon rainforest was evaluated by a team that included WashU researchers; the findings are now published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Across 406 forest plots stretching from the lowland Amazon basin in Brazil to the Andes Mountains from Colombia to Bolivia, scientists have tracked the fate of tropical trees for four decades. The study’s conclusion is nuanced: While the total number of tree species has remained largely stable, tree biodiversity has subtly shifted throughout the region, with potentially important ecological consequences.
The work included important contributions from Myers, a professor of biology in Arts & Sciences and a fellow of the Living Earth Collaborative, and Pennington, the David and Dorothy Kemper Professor in the Department of Biology, a joint appointment with the Missouri Botanical Garden.
The project uncovered fascinating shifts in the number of tree species across regions and habitats. While the number of tree species declined in warmer, drier and fragmented sections of lowland forest, cooler and wetter forests in more intact areas gained species.
Read more on the Ampersand website.
