TY - JOUR

T1 - Canopy functional trait variation across Earth’s tropical forests

AU - Author collaboration for "Canopy functional trait variation across Earth’s tropical forests"

AU - Aguirre-Gutiérrez, Jesús

AU - Rifai, Sami W.

AU - Deng, Xiongjie

AU - ter Steege, Hans

AU - Thomson, Eleanor

AU - Corral-Rivas, Jose Javier

AU - Guimaraes, Aretha Franklin

AU - Muller, Sandra

AU - Klipel, Joice

AU - Fauset, Sophie

AU - Resende, Angelica F.

AU - Wallin, Göran

AU - Joly, Carlos A.

AU - Abernethy, Katharine

AU - Adu-Bredu, Stephen

AU - Alexandre Silva, Celice

AU - de Oliveira, Edmar Almeida

AU - Almeida, Danilo R.A.

AU - Alvarez-Davila, Esteban

AU - Asner, Gregory P.

AU - Baker, Timothy R.

AU - Benchimol, Maíra

AU - Bentley, Lisa Patrick

AU - Berenguer, Erika

AU - Blanc, Lilian

AU - Bonal, Damien

AU - Bordin, Kauane

AU - Borges de Lima, Robson

AU - Both, Sabine

AU - Cabezas Duarte, Jaime

AU - Cardoso, Domingos

AU - de Lima, Haroldo C.

AU - Cavalheiro, Larissa

AU - Cernusak, Lucas A.

AU - dos Santos Prestes, Nayane Cristina C.

AU - da Silva Zanzini, Antonio Carlos

AU - da Silva, Ricardo José

AU - dos Santos Alves da Silva, Robson

AU - de Andrade Iguatemy, Mariana

AU - De Sousa Oliveira, Tony César

AU - Dechant, Benjamin

AU - Derroire, Géraldine

AU - Dexter, Kyle G.

AU - Rodrigues, Domingos J.

AU - Espírito-Santo, Mário

AU - Silva, Letícia Fernandes

AU - Domingues, Tomas Ferreira

AU - Ferreira, Joice

AU - Simon, Marcelo Fragomeni

AU - Girardin, Cécile A.J.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2025.

PY - 2025/5/1

Y1 - 2025/5/1

N2 - Tropical forest canopies are the biosphere’s most concentrated atmospheric interface for carbon, water and energy1,2. However, in most Earth System Models, the diverse and heterogeneous tropical forest biome is represented as a largely uniform ecosystem with either a singular or a small number of fixed canopy ecophysiological properties3. This situation arises, in part, from a lack of understanding about how and why the functional properties of tropical forest canopies vary geographically4. Here, by combining field-collected data from more than 1,800 vegetation plots and tree traits with satellite remote-sensing, terrain, climate and soil data, we predict variation across 13 morphological, structural and chemical functional traits of trees, and use this to compute and map the functional diversity of tropical forests. Our findings reveal that the tropical Americas, Africa and Asia tend to occupy different portions of the total functional trait space available across tropical forests. Tropical American forests are predicted to have 40% greater functional richness than tropical African and Asian forests. Meanwhile, African forests have the highest functional divergence—32% and 7% higher than that of tropical American and Asian forests, respectively. An uncertainty analysis highlights priority regions for further data collection, which would refine and improve these maps. Our predictions represent a ground-based and remotely enabled global analysis of how and why the functional traits of tropical forest canopies vary across space.

AB - Tropical forest canopies are the biosphere’s most concentrated atmospheric interface for carbon, water and energy1,2. However, in most Earth System Models, the diverse and heterogeneous tropical forest biome is represented as a largely uniform ecosystem with either a singular or a small number of fixed canopy ecophysiological properties3. This situation arises, in part, from a lack of understanding about how and why the functional properties of tropical forest canopies vary geographically4. Here, by combining field-collected data from more than 1,800 vegetation plots and tree traits with satellite remote-sensing, terrain, climate and soil data, we predict variation across 13 morphological, structural and chemical functional traits of trees, and use this to compute and map the functional diversity of tropical forests. Our findings reveal that the tropical Americas, Africa and Asia tend to occupy different portions of the total functional trait space available across tropical forests. Tropical American forests are predicted to have 40% greater functional richness than tropical African and Asian forests. Meanwhile, African forests have the highest functional divergence—32% and 7% higher than that of tropical American and Asian forests, respectively. An uncertainty analysis highlights priority regions for further data collection, which would refine and improve these maps. Our predictions represent a ground-based and remotely enabled global analysis of how and why the functional traits of tropical forest canopies vary across space.

KW - Biology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105004072043&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1038/s41586-025-08663-2

DO - 10.1038/s41586-025-08663-2

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 40044867

AN - SCOPUS:105004072043

VL - 641

SP - 129

EP - 136

JO - Nature

JF - Nature

SN - 0028-0836

IS - 8061

M1 - 16024

ER -