
David Alan NeillUniversidad Estatal Amazónica | UEA · Dirección de Conservación y Manejo de Vida Silvestre
David Alan Neill
Ph.D., Washington Univ. 1984
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242
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18,169
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Additional affiliations
September 2013 - September 2016
July 1989 - September 1996

Jatun Sacha Foundation
Position
- Director Ejecutivo
January 1985 - August 2010
Publications
Publications (242)
Water availability is the major driver of tropical forest structure and dynamics. Most research has focused on the impacts of climatic water availability, whereas remarkably little is known about the influence of water table depth and excess soil water on forest processes. Nevertheless, given that plants take up water from the soil, the impacts of...
Recent floristic surveys in Ecuador and Peru have found many disjunct species between the Guyana Shield and the Cordillera del Cóndor. Here, we report the occurrence of another disjunct species between these two ranges, Pseudolycopodiella iuliformis (Underw. & F.E. Lloyd) Holub, recently discovered in the Cordillera del Cóndor range. We present a m...
Following the recent resurrection of Sciodaphyllum P. Browne (Araliaceae) to accommodate the majority of Neotropical species formerly included in Schefflera J. R. Forst. & G. Forst., we have begun to describe the many new members of this genus documented during field and herbarium studies conducted over the past several years. Here we describe and...
The forests of Amazonia are among the most biodiverse plant communities on Earth. Given the immediate threats posed by climate and land-use change, an improved understanding of how this extraordinary biodiversity is spatially organized is urgently required to develop effective conservation strategies. Most Amazonian tree species are extremely rare...
Until recently, Schefflera was the largest genus in Araliaceae (with more than 600 described species), but with a growing understanding of its polyphyly, the circumscription of Schefflera had to be limited to just eight closely related species from the Pacific Islands. To restore monophyly, it was necessary to transfer the remaining, unrelated spec...
Tropical forests are the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth. While better understanding of these forests is critical for our collective future, until quite recently efforts to measure and monitor them have been largely disconnected. Networking is essential to discover the answers to questions that transcend borders and the horizons of...
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...
The forests of Amazonia are among the most biodiverse plant communities on Earth. Given the immediate threats posed by climate and land-use change, an improved understanding of how this extraordinary biodiversity is spatially organized is urgently required to develop effective conservation strategies. Most Amazonian tree species are extremely rare...
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20537-x
The carbon sink capacity of tropical forests is substantially affected by tree mortality. However, the main drivers of tropical tree death remain largely unknown. Here we present a pan-Amazonian assessment of how and why trees die, analysing over 120,000 trees representing > 3800 species from 189 long-term RAINFOR forest plots. While tree mortality...
The carbon sink capacity of tropical forests is substantially affected by tree mortality. However, the main drivers of tropical tree death remain largely unknown. Here we present a pan-Amazonian assessment of how and why trees die, analysing over 120,000 trees representing > 3800 species from 189 long-term RAINFOR forest plots. While tree mortality...
The carbon sink capacity of tropical forests is substantially affected by tree mortality. However, the main drivers of tropical tree death remain largely unknown. Here we present a pan-Amazonian assessment of how and why trees die, analysing over 120,000 trees representing > 3800 species from 189 long-term RAINFOR forest plots. While tree mortality...
Modifications of Amazonian forests by pre‐Columbian peoples are thought to have left ecological legacies that have persisted to the modern day. Most Amazonian palaeoecological records do not, however, provide the required temporal resolution to document the nuanced changes of pre‐Columbian disturbance or post‐disturbance succession and recovery, ma...
Aim
Palms are an iconic, diverse and often abundant component of tropical ecosystems that provide many ecosystem services. Being monocots, tree palms are evolutionarily, morphologically and physiologically distinct from other trees, and these differences have important consequences for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration and storage) and...
Aim: Palms are an iconic, diverse and often abundant component of tropical ecosystems that provide many ecosystem services. Being monocots, tree palms are evolutionarily, morphologically and physiologically distinct from other trees, and these differences have important consequences for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration and storage) an...
Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia...
Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia...
Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia...
Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific
spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia...
Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia...
The sensitivity of tropical forest carbon to climate is a key uncertainty in predicting global climate change. Although short-term drying and warming are known to affect forests, it is unknown if such effects translate into long-term responses. Here, we analyze 590 permanent plots measured across the tropics to derive the equilibrium climate contro...
The sensitivity of tropical forest carbon to climate is a key uncertainty in predicting global climate change. Although short-term drying and warming are known to affect forests, it is unknown if such effects translate into long-term responses. Here, we analyze 590 permanent plots measured across the tropics to derive the equilibrium climate contro...
Competition among trees is an important driver of community structure and dynamics in tropical forests. Neighboring trees may impact an individual tree’s growth rate and probability of mortality, but large‐scale geographic and environmental variation in these competitive effects has yet to be evaluated across the tropical forest biome. We quantifie...
Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia...
Magnolia napoensis, a new species from the Amazonian lowlands of Ecuador and Peru is described and illustrated. This species belongs to subsection Talauma; it is similar to M. rimachii in leaf shape but differs from the latter in being taller with a larger diameter and having fewer lateral leaf veins, more numerous hypsophylls, larger flowers, long...
Magnolia dixonii (Little 1969: 457) Govaerts in Frodin & Govaerts (1996: 70) has been rediscovered by botanists and conservationists in November, 2017, at the Tesoro Escondido Reserve, a private reserve conserving 2000 ha of primary rainforest in the highly threatened Ecuadorian Chocó, protecting critically endangered species such as the Ecuadorian...
Higher levels of taxonomic and evolutionary diversity are expected to maximize ecosystem function, yet their relative importance in driving variation in ecosystem function at large scales in diverse forests is unknown. Using 90 inventory plots across intact, lowland, terra firme, Amazonian forests and a new phylogeny including 526 angiosperm genera...
Higher levels of taxonomic and evolutionary diversity are expected to maximize ecosystem function, yet their relative importance in driving variation in ecosystem function at large scales in diverse forests is unknown. Using 90 inventory plots across intact, lowland, terra firme, Amazonian forests and a new phylogeny including 526 angiosperm genera...
The pantropical genus Schefflera J. R. Forst. & G. Forst. (Araliaceae) was recently found to be polyphyletic, making it necessary to restrict the generic name to a small clade in the southwest Pacific and to transfer the members of the four remaining clades to other genera. Recent studies of the Neotropical clade have shown that it comprises five m...
Phylogenetic studies have shown that Schefflera, the largest genus of Araliaceae, is highly polyphyletic, comprising five non-sister clades within the family, and that the generic name must be restricted to a small group of Pacific Island species. In an effort to establish monophyletic genera for the other elements still remaining in Schefflera, ph...
Se presenta una lista de especies de árboles de la Amazonía ecuatoriana, revisada taxonómicamente, que es el resultado de 20 años de inventarios florísticos y revisiones de especímenes en los herbarios ecuatorianos. Los resultados determinaron que hay 2296 especies de árboles, el 90% de estas especies se encuentran actualmente en la lista de No Eva...
Durante el período 2000 – 2016, se llevaron a cabo 15 inventarios biológicos en áreas remotas en el pie de monte andino y el llano amazónico del Perú. En estos inventarios, 27 botánicos colectaron un total de 9397 especímenes de plantas vasculares fértiles. Hasta finales del 2017, más de la mitad de estos especímenes se han identificado a nivel de...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
We compiled a data set for all tree species collected to date in lowland Amazonian Ecuador in order to determine the number of tree species in the region. This data set has been extensively verified by taxonomists and is the most comprehensive attempt to evaluate the tree diversity in one of the richest species regions of the Amazon. We used four m...
Magnolia dixonii has been rediscovered by botanists and conservationists in November 2017 at the Tesoro Escondido Reserve, a private reserve, part the Ecuadorian NGO Fundación Jocotoco, conserving 2000 ha of primary rainforest in the highly threatened Ecuadorian Chocó, protecting critically endangered species such as the Ecuadorian brown-headed spi...
Neutral models are often used as null models, testing the relative importance of niche versus neutral processes in shaping diversity. Most versions, however, focus only on regional scale predictions and neglect local level contributions. Recently, a new formulation of spatial neutral theory was published showing an incompatibility between regional...
This paper reviews Hippotis Ruiz & Pav. and Schradera Vahl, two Rubiaceae genera with centers of diversity in western South America. Both are inadequately known and in need of field study. Recent authors’ circumscriptions of H. albiflora H. Karst. and H. mollis Standl. are narrowed here, and four new species of Hippotis are described: H. antioquian...
2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. In this Letter, the middle initial of author G. J. Nabuurs was omitted, and he should have been associated with an additional affiliation: ‘Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands’ (now added as affiliation 18...
A spatially explicit global map of tree symbioses with nitrogen-fixing bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi reveals that climate variables are the primary drivers of the distribution of different types of symbiosis.
Climate, species composition, and soils are thought to control carbon cycling and forest structure in Amazonian forests. Here, we add a demographics scheme (tree recruitment, growth, and mortality) to a recently developed non-demographic model—the Trait-based Forest Simulator (TFS)—to explore the roles of climate and plant traits in controlling for...
Second edition of the abstracts and credits book from the XII Latin American Botanical Congress, held in Quito, Ecuador in October 2018.
Most of the planet's diversity is concentrated in the tropics, which includes many regions undergoing rapid climate change. Yet, while climate-induced biodiversity changes are widely documented elsewhere, few studies have addressed this issue for lowland tropical ecosystems. Here we investigate whether the floristic and functional composition of in...
Plant functional traits directly affect ecosystem functions. At the species level, trait combinations depend on trade-offs representing different ecological strategies, but at the community level trait combinations are expected to be decoupled from these trade-offs because different strategies can facilitate co-existence within communities. A key r...
Plant functional traits directly affect ecosystem functions. At the species level, trait combinations depend on trade-offs representing different ecological strategies, but at the community level trait combinations are expected to be decoupled from these trade-offs because different strategies can facilitate co-existence within communities. A key q...
Most of the planet's diversity is concentrated in the tropics, which includes many
regions undergoing rapid climate change. Yet, while climate‐induced biodiversity
changes are widely documented elsewhere, few studies have addressed this issue
for lowland tropical ecosystems. Here we investigate whether the floristic and functional
composition of in...
Aim Large tropical trees form the interface between ground and airborne observations, offering a unique opportunity to capture forest properties remotely and to investigate their variations on broad scales. However, despite rapid development of metrics to characterize the forest canopy from remotely sensed data, a gap remains between aerial and fie...
Aim: Large tropical trees form the interface between ground and airborne observations, offering a unique opportunity to capture forest properties remotely and to investigate their variations on broad scales. However, despite rapid development of metrics to characterize the forest canopy from remotely sensed data, a gap remains between aerial and fi...
La evaluación del análisis de las tasas de crecimiento de las especies forestales Myroxylon balsamum (L.) Harms (Bálsamo) y Minquartia guianensis Aubl. (Guayacán negro) y Otoba parvifolia (Doncel) establecidas en rodales de investigación en la Estación Científica Jatun Sacha (ECJS), con una edad de 20 años, fue el motivo principal de esta investiga...
La evaluación del análisis de las tasas de crecimiento de las especies forestales Myroxylon balsamum (L.) Harms (Bálsamo) y Minquartia guianensis Aubl. (Guayacán negro) y Otoba parvifolia (Doncel) establecidas en rodales de investigación en la Estación Científica Jatun Sacha (ECJS), con una edad de 20 años, fue el motivo principal de esta investiga...
Aim: Large tropical trees form the interface between ground and airborne observations, offering a unique opportunity to capture forest properties remotely and to investigate their variations on broad scales. However, despite rapid development of metrics to characterize the forest canopy from remotely sensed data, a gap remains between aerial and fi...