
Alfonso AlonsoSmithsonian Institution · Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute
Alfonso Alonso
PhD
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162
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Publications
Publications (162)
Unlike most rivers globally, nearly all lowland Amazonian rivers have unregulated
flow, supporting seasonally flooded floodplain forests. Floodplain forests harbor a
unique tree species assemblage adapted to flooding and specialized fauna, including
fruit-eating fish that migrate seasonally into floodplains, favoring expansive floodplain
areas....
Leaf and wood functional traits of trees are related to growth, reproduction, and survival, but the degree of phylogenetic conservatism in these relationships is largely unknown. In this study, we describe the variability of strategies involving leaf, wood and demographic characteristics for tree genera distributed across the Amazon Region, and qua...
Aims
Knowledge about species niches along environmental gradients is needed to understand community assembly and spatial variation in floristic composition and species richness. In Amazonian rainforests, such knowledge is largely lacking, although ferns have been used to infer overall floristic and edaphic patterns. Here we explore fern species dis...
We describe the geographical variation in tree species composition across Amazonian forests and show how environmental conditions are associated with species turnover. Our analyses are based on 2023 forest inventory plots (1 ha) that provide abundance data for a total of 5188 tree species. Within-plot species composition reflected both local enviro...
Aim: Amazonia hosts more tree species from numerous evolutionary lineages, both young and ancient, than any other biogeographic region. Previous studies have shown that tree lineages colonized multiple edaphic environments and dispersed widely across Amazonia, leading to a hypothesis, which we test, that lineages should not be strongly associated w...
Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we inve...
Mycorrhizae, a form of plant–fungal symbioses, mediate vegetation impacts on ecosystem functioning. Climatic effects on decomposition and soil quality are suggested to drive mycorrhizal distributions, with arbuscular mycorrhizal plants prevailing in low-latitude/high-soil-quality areas and ectomycorrhizal (EcM) plants in high-latitude/low-soil-qual...
ARTICLE Mapping density, diversity and species-richness of the Amazon tree flora Using 2.046 botanically-inventoried tree plots across the largest tropical forest on Earth, we mapped tree species-diversity and tree species-richness at 0.1-degree resolution, and investigated drivers for diversity and richness. Using only location, stratified by fore...
One mechanism proposed to explain high species diversity in tropical systems is strong negative conspecific density dependence (CDD), which reduces recruitment of juveniles in proximity to conspecific adult plants. Although evidence shows that plant-specific soil pathogens can drive negative CDD, trees also form key mutualisms with mycorrhizal fung...
In a time of rapid global change, the question of what determines patterns in species abundance distribution remains a priority for understanding the complex dynamics of ecosystems. The constrained maximization of information entropy provides a framework for the understanding of such complex systems dynamics by a quantitative analysis of important...
Aim
To investigate the geographic patterns and ecological correlates in the geographic distribution of the most common tree dispersal modes in Amazonia (endozoochory, synzoochory, anemochory and hydrochory). We examined if the proportional abundance of these dispersal modes could be explained by the availability of dispersal agents (disperser‐avail...
Tree diversity and composition in Amazonia are known to be strongly determined by the water supplied by precipitation. Nevertheless, within the same climatic regime, water availability is modulated by local topography and soil characteristics (hereafter referred to as local hydrological conditions), varying from saturated and poorly drained to well...
NASAs Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) is collecting space-borne full waveform lidar data with a primary science goal of producing accurate estimates of forest aboveground biomass density (AGBD). This paper presents the development of the models used to create GEDIs footprint-level (~25 m) AGBD (GEDI04_A) product, including a descript...
In 2015 and 2016, the AfriSAR campaign was carried out as a collaborative effort among international space and National Park agencies (ESA, NASA, ONERA, DLR, ANPN and AGEOS) in support of the upcoming ESA BIOMASS, NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) and NASA Global Ecosystem Dynamics Initiative (GEDI) missions. The NASA contribution to the c...
Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) and ectomycorrhizal (EcM) associations are critical for host-tree performance. However, how mycorrhizal associations correlate with the latitudinal tree beta-diversity remains untested. Using a global dataset of 45 forest plots representing 2,804,270 trees across 3840 species, we test how AM and EcM trees contribute to t...
In a time of rapid global change, the question of what determines patterns in species abundance distribution remains a priority for understanding the complex dynamics of ecosystems. The constrained maximization of information entropy provides a framework for the understanding of such complex systems dynamics by a quantitative analysis of important...
Exotic forest insects and pathogens (EFIP) have become regular features of temperate forest ecosystems, yet we lack a long-term perspective on their net impacts on tree mortality, carbon sequestration, and tree species diversity. Here, we analyze 3 decades (1987–2019) of forest monitoring data from the Blue Ridge Mountains ecoregion in eastern Nort...
ForestGEO is a network of scientists and long-term forest dynamics plots (FDPs) spanning the Earth's major forest types. ForestGEO's mission is to advance understanding of the diversity and dynamics of forests and to strengthen global capacity for forest science research. ForestGEO is unique among forest plot networks in its large-scale plot dimens...
Tropical forests are characterized by large carbon stocks and high biodiversity, but they are increasingly threatened by human activities. Since structure strongly influences the functioning and resilience of forest communities and ecosystems, it is important to quantify it at fine spatial scales.
Here, we propose a new simulation-based approach, t...
Forest biomass is key in Earth carbon cycle and climate system, and thus under intense scrutiny in the context of international climate change mitigation initiatives (e.g. REDD+). In tropical forests, the spatial distribution of aboveground biomass (AGB) remains, however, highly uncertain. There is increasing recognition that progress is strongly l...
Aim
Mapping tree species richness across the tropics is of great interest for effective conservation and biodiversity management. In this study, we evaluated the potential of full‐waveform lidar data for mapping tree species richness across the tropics by relating measurements of vertical canopy structure, as a proxy for the occupation of vertical...
Legumes provide an essential service to ecosystems by capturing nitrogen from the atmosphere and delivering it to the soil, where it may then be available to other plants. However, this facilitation by legumes has not been widely studied in global tropical forests. Demographic data from 11 large forest plots (16–60 ha) ranging from 5.25° S to 29.25...
Population monitoring is critical to effective conservation, but forest living taxa can be difficult to directly observe. This has been true of African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis), for which we have limited information regarding population size and social behavior despite their threatened conservation status. In this study, we estimated d...
The noninvasive monitoring of population size and demography is critical to effective conservation, but forest living taxa can be difficult to directly observe due to elusiveness and/or inaccessible habitat. This has been true of African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis), for which we have limited information regarding population size and socia...
Forest biomass is an essential indicator for monitoring the Earth’s ecosystems and climate. It is a critical input to greenhouse gas accounting, estimation of carbon losses and forest degradation, assessment of renewable energy potential, and for developing climate change mitigation policies such as REDD+, among others. Wall-to-wall mapping of abov...
Tropical forests are known for their high diversity. Yet, forest patches do occur in the tropics where a single tree species is dominant. Such “monodominant” forests are known from all of the main tropical regions. For Amazonia, we sampled the occurrence of monodominance in a massive, basin-wide database of forest-inventory plots from the Amazon Tr...
Mapping tree species diversity is increasingly important in the face of environmental change and biodiversity conservation. We explore a potential way of mapping this diversity by relating forest structure to tree species diversity in Gabon. First, we test the relation between canopy height, as a proxy for niche volume, and tree species diversity....
Abstract We investigated the patterns of genetic diversity and structure of African forest elephants in a human‐modified landscape in the Gamba complex of protected areas (GCPA), a tropical wilderness area along the southwest coast of Gabon. We collected 298 elephant fecal samples from four sites (Sette Cama, Gamba area, Vera Plains, and Mayonami),...
Questions
We examined the spatial patterns of dominant canopy species in a tropical forest to investigate: 1) what is the niche occupancy of canopy species with respect to topographic gradients? 2) what are the dominant ecological processes that explain their distribution? 3) what are the interactions among the most prevalent canopy species? and 4)...
Fragmentation caused by linear infrastructures is a threat to forest-dwelling wildlife globally. Loss of canopy connectivity is particularly problematic for highly arboreal species such as those of the Neotropics. We explored the use of both natural canopy bridges (NCBs) and a semi-artificial one over a natural gas pipeline right-of-way (RoW) in th...
Climate is widely recognised as an important determinant of the latitudinal diversity gradient. However, most existing studies make no distinction between direct and indirect effects of climate, which substantially hinders our understanding of how climate constrains biodiversity globally. Using data from 35 large forest plots, we test hypothesised...
Climate is widely recognised as an important determinant of the latitudinal diversity gradient. However, most existing studies make no distinction between direct and indirect effects of climate, which substantially hinders our understanding of how climate constrains biodiversity globally. Using data from 35 large forest plots, we test hypothesised...
Corridors are intended to increase species survival by abating landscape fragmentation resulting from the conversion of natural habitats into human‐dominated matrices. Conservation scientists often rely on 1 type of corridor model, typically the least‐cost model or current‐flow model, to construct a linkage design, and their choice is not usually b...
We studied the germination of Eriotheca vargasii (Malvaceae), a poorly known endemic Peruvian Andean tree species characteristic of the dry forests of the Torobamba river valley, Peru. We determined seed characteristics, embryo morphology, viability, and assessed the influence of substrate (natural soil and commercially prepared media), temperature...
El Bosque Atlántico del Alto Paraná es un bosque subtropical semideciduo, caracterizado por la alta riqueza de flora. Sin embargo, debido al cambio de uso de tierra, quedan pocos remanentes boscosos conservados en Áreas Protegidas. La ITAIPU Binacional (IB), junto con el Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, lleva a cabo un convenio con el fi...
Los bosques de la ecorregión del Bosque Atlántico de Alto Paraná corresponden a bosques subtropicales semideciduos. Estos bosques han estado sometidos a altas tasas de deforestación, y en la actualidad sólo quedan remanentes boscosos conservados en áreas protegidas. Actualmente se está realizando una caracterización de las comunidades boscosas que...
Tropical forests are a key component of the global carbon cycle. Yet, there are still high uncertainties in forest carbon stock and flux estimates, notably because of their spatial and temporal variability across the tropics. Several upcoming spaceborne missions have been designed to address this gap. High-quality ground data are essential for accu...
Hülsmann and Hartig suggest that ecological mechanisms other than specialized natural enemies or intraspecific competition contribute to our estimates of conspecific negative density dependence (CNDD). To address their concern, we show that our results are not the result of a methodological artifact and present a null-model analysis that demonstrat...
Chisholm and Fung claim that our method of estimating conspecific negative density dependence (CNDD) in recruitment is systematically biased, and present an alternative method that shows no latitudinal pattern in CNDD. We demonstrate that their approach produces strongly biased estimates of CNDD, explaining why they do not detect a latitudinal patt...
Aim
To examine the contribution of large‐diameter trees to biomass, stand structure, and species richness across forest biomes.
Location
Global.
Time period
Early 21st century.
Major taxa studied
Woody plants.
Methods
We examined the contribution of large trees to forest density, richness and biomass using a global network of 48 large (from 2 t...
Analysis of patterns in the distribution of taxa can provide important insights into ecological and evolutionary processes. Microbial biogeographic patterns almost always appear to be weaker than those reported for plant and animal taxa. It is as yet unclear why this is the case. Some argue that microbial diversity scales differently over space bec...
Species distribution models (SDMs) are widely used in ecology and conservation. Presence-only SDMs such as MaxEnt frequently use natural history collections (NHCs) as occurrence data, given their huge numbers and accessibility. NHCs are often spatially biased which may generate inaccuracies in SDMs. Here, we test how the distribution of NHCs and Ma...
Belongs to paper Species Distribution Modelling: Contrasting presence-only models with plot abundance data by Gomes et al.
Comparing the results of modelling the area of occupancy with MaxEnt and with inverse distance weighting (IDW).
Analysis results for the predicted area of occupancy as calculated by Maxent and IDW methods. The analyses were conducted for 170 of all 227 hyperdominant species that had MaxEnt’s predicted environmental suitability significantly differ...
Species distribution models (SDMs) are widely used in ecology and conservation. Presence-only SDMs such as MaxEnt frequently use natural history collections (NHCs) as occurrence data, given their huge numbers and accessibility. NHCs are often spatially biased which may generate inaccuracies in SDMs. Here, we test how the distribution of NHCs and Ma...
We present monitoring methods and quantitative biodiversity data to document components of the mitigation hierarchy. We estimated avoidance, minimization, restoration and impact reduction in quality hectares for the 25 m wide right of way of a 408 km natural gas buried pipeline that crosses 14 Ecological Landscape Units (ELUs) in the tropical Andes...
We recorded ground-foraging ant species in forest and savannah habitats along a 52-km-long road planned for upgrade in the buffer zone of the Moukalaba-Doudou National Park in southwest Gabon. Sixty stations were established with three sampling points on each side of the future road and baited with peanut butter to record the presence of invasive W...
Linear infrastructure such as pipelines and power lines is ubiquitous and responsible for loss of habitats and disruption of landscape connectivity. We reviewed published research to answer the following questions: (1) Which organisms are commonly used to indicate impacts of pipelines and power lines to biodiversity? (2) How do pipelines and power...
Maintaining tree diversity
Negative interaction among plant species is known as conspecific negative density dependence (CNDD). This ecological pattern is thought to maintain higher species diversity in the tropics. LaManna et al. tested this hypothesis by comparing how tree species diversity changes with the intensity of local biotic interactions...
Linear infrastructure development and resulting habitat fragmentation are expanding in Neotropical forests, and arboreal mammals may be disproportionately impacted by these linear habitat clearings. Maintaining canopy connectivity through preservation of connecting branches (i.e. natural canopy bridges) may help mitigate that impact. Using camera t...
We assessed area and habitat heterogeneity effects on avian richness and composition in bofedales that differed in size and microhabitat diversity. We analyzed data collected in 2 seasons and 24 bofedales using General Linear Models, Ordinary Least Square models to establish the relationship of predictor variables on richness and Akaike Information...
The high demand for conservation-based work is creating a need for conservation-focused training of current and future graduate students. While many graduates with tertiary degrees in biology are finding careers outside of academia, many programs and mentors continue to prepare students to follow in the footsteps of their professors. Unfortunately,...
A visual guide of the mammals of the Gamba Complex of Protected Areas in Gabon
While natural resource exploration and extraction activity is expanding in the Neotropics, our understanding of wildlife response to such activity is almost non-existent. Primates, which fulfill important ecological roles and face numerous anthropogenic threats, are of particular concern. We studied primate group distribution before, during, and af...
Unsustainable hunting outside protected areas is threatening tropical biodiversity worldwide and requires conservationists to engage increasingly in antipoaching activities. Following the example of ecocertified logging companies, we argue that other extractive industries managing large concessions should engage in antipoaching activities as part o...
Tropical forests have long been recognized for their biodiversity and ecosystem services. Despite their importance, tropical forests, and particularly those of central Africa, remain understudied. Until recently, most forest inventories in Central Africa have focused on trees ≥10 cm in diameter, even though several studies have shown that small-dia...
Abundance, basal area, and aboveground biomass (AGB) of woody species ≥1 cm dbh in the 25-ha Rabi forest plot, Gabon.
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