Success and Vulnerability in America's Tropical Forests

Few tasks in science are more urgent than revealing the rules that govern why some living things dominate and which will be most vulnerable in our rapidly changing world. Most life on Earth is tropical, but understanding and predicting responses here is challenging. Amazonia, for example, still includes 5 million km2 of forest, nearly 20 times the size of the United Kingdom. South American forests are perhaps the most important ecosystems on Earth. They support astonishing diversity (15,000 tree species in the Amazon alone), lock up huge amounts of carbon (>100 billion tonnes), slow climate change, and support livelihoods (e.g., ter Steege et al. 2013, Phillips et al. 2017). How species and ecosystems here respond to climate change will define the future of life everywhere.

The aim of the project is to discover why some species are so much more successful than others, and if the rules of "success" are now changing.

This project takes advantage of three major developments in biodiversity science that make it possible to measure species' success and vulnerability in the most vital part of the planet (e.g., Enquist et al. 2016, Baker et al. 2017, Esquivel-Muelbert et al. 2017, Coelho de Sousa 2017). (1)biogeographical advances provide precision to map species and analytical tools let us model biogeographical records and their reliability. It is now possible to reveal species ranges and the climate and soil conditions they occupy. (2)ecological, long-term fieldwork to measure tropical species and dynamics is being integrated as never before, enabling assessment of abundance, biomass, growth and change over time (e.g., ForestPlots.net 2021). Thus it is possible to trace how successful species are, where, and in which conditions. Finally, (3)evolutionary scientists are piecing together the tree-of-life, the relatedness of everything, with extraordinary precision. Thus it is possible for the first time to explore how evolutionary history affects ecological success.

Focusing on the Amazon and adjacent dry and moist forests and savannas, key questions to develop include:

*Does biogeographic success predict ecological success? (For example, do well-distributed species also capture most carbon?).
*Is ecological success predictable from evolutionary history, or random across the tree-of-life? (For example, are forest dominants closely related to one-another?)
*Are species' climate-change-sensitivities written into their biogeography? (For example, are tree species from savannas and drier forests benefitting from recent climate changes, or are those phylogenetic clades that switched biomes in the past also those which are resilient now?).

The project will explore these and related questions working with leaders in these fields:

Remeasuring Amazon plots with partners in areas of rapid change.
Analysing long-term records of tree size, growth and death across neotropical forests.
Modelling species ranges from millions of records of occurrences and associated data.
Advanced biogeographic and evolutionary analyses, including visiting external partners Brian Enquist, founder of BIEN plant network, and Tiina Sarkinen, evolutionary scientist, for further training.


Potential for High Impact Outcomes
This project addresses key questions at the intersection of ecology, biodiversity, evolution, and climate change. It contributes to global understanding on what makes plants successful, or vulnerable - with potential for risk-profiling and developing conservation responses to help those at risk. The supervisors and collaborators have strong records of high-impact outcomes from research on tropical biodiversity, ecology, and carbon storage and sequestration.