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Many shades of green: The dynamic tropical forest–savannah transition zones

September 2016
371(1703)

DOI:10.1098/rstb.2015.0308

Authors:

The forest–savannah transition is the most widespread ecotone in tropical areas, separating two of the most productive terrestrial ecosystems. Here, we review current understanding of the factors that shape this transition, and how it may change under various drivers of local or global change. At broadest scales, the location of the transition is shaped by water availability, mediated strongly at local scales by fire regimes, herbivory pressure and spatial variation in soil properties. The frequently dynamic nature of this transition suggests that forest and savannah can exist as alternative stable states, maintained and separated by fire–grass feedbacks and tree shade–fire suppression feedback. However, this theory is still contested and the relative contributions of the main biotic and abiotic drivers and their interactions are yet not fully understood. These drivers interplay with a wide range of ecological processes and attributes at the global, continental, regional and local scales. The evolutionary history of the biotic and abiotic drivers and processes plays an important role in the current distributions of these transitions as well as in their species composition and ecosystem functioning. This ecotone can be sensitive to shifts in climate and other driving factors, but is also potentially stabilized by negative feedback processes. There is abundant evidence that these transitions are shifting under contemporary global and local changes, but the direction of shift varies according to region. However, it still remains uncertain how these transitions will respond to rapid and multi-faceted ongoing current changes, and how increasing human influence will interact with these shifts. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Tropical grassy biomes: linking ecology, human use and conservation’.

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Cite this article: Oliveras I, Malhi Y. 2016

Many shades of green: the dynamic tropical

forest– savannah transition zones. Phil.

Trans. R. Soc. B 371: 20150308.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0308

Accepted: 13 June 2016

One contribution of 15 to a theme issue

‘Tropical grassy biomes: linking ecology,

human use and conservation’.

Subject Areas:

ecology, environmental science, plant science

Keywords:

community ecology, tropical forest ecology,

fire ecology, remote sensing

Author for correspondence:

Immaculada Oliveras

e-mail: imma.oliveras@ouce.ox.ac.uk

†

These authors contributed equally to this

study.

Many shades of green: the dynamic

tropical forest–savannah transition zones

Immaculada Oliveras†and Yadvinder Malhi†

Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK

The forest– savannah transition is the most widespread ecotone in tropical

areas, separating two of the most productive terrestrial ecosystems. Here,

we review current understanding of the factors that shape this transition,

and how it may change under various drivers of local or global change. At

broadest scales, the location of the transition is shaped by water availability,

mediated strongly at local scales by fire regimes, herbivory pressure and

spatial variation in soil properties. The frequently dynamic nature of this tran-

sition suggests that forest and savannah can exist as alternative stable states,

maintained and separated by fire– grass feedbacks and tree shade– fire

suppression feedback. However, this theory is still contested and the relative

contributions of the main biotic and abiotic drivers and their interactions are

yet not fully understood. These drivers interplay with a wide range of ecologi-

cal processes and attributes at the global, continental, regional and local scales.

The evolutionary history of the biotic and abiotic drivers and processes plays

an important role in the current distributions of these transitions as well as in

their species composition and ecosystem functioning. This ecotone can be sen-

sitive to shifts in climate and other driving factors, but is also potentially

stabilized by negative feedback processes. There is abundant evidence that

these transitions are shifting under contemporary global and local changes,

but the direction of shift varies according to region. However, it still remains

uncertain how these transitions will respond to rapid and multi-faceted

ongoing current changes, and how increasing human influence will interact

with these shifts.

This article is part of the themed issue ‘Tropical grassy biomes: linking

ecology, human use and conservation’.

1. Introduction

One of the main foci of ecological science over the last decades has been under-

standing how global change will translate into shifts in species composition,

vegetation structure and biogeochemical cycling over space and time. Although

there has been much progress, it remains a major challenge to reliably pre-

dict how the various agents of global change are going to shift ecosystem

functioning and distribution.

Most research efforts on studying the effects of global change have focused

on comparing distinct ecosystems and communities, with areas of transition

between them receiving much less attention. Vegetation transitions, or ecotones,

are border regions of transition between communities, ecosystems or biomes,

reflecting both local and regional changes in abiotic conditions [1–3]. They

are expected to be especially sensitive to global change, since relatively minor

shifts in environmental drivers (e.g. climate, soils or herbivory) can translate

into dramatic changes in their ecosystem structure and composition. With

increasing human-caused disturbances and landscape fragmentation, ecotones

will become even more common and important to the dynamics of the ecosys-

tems on either side of the transition, redefining their boundaries and influencing

their structure and function [4].

Probably the most emblematic vegetation transitions are those between

closed-canopy forests and savannahs, the latter being more open and less

wooded ecosystems and include a significant proportion of grass cover. The

relative abundance of two very different plant life forms (tree versus grass)

Phytolith and macrocharcoal records from Lake Tanganyika (Africa) reveal high-frequency shifts in savanna ecosystem states during the Common Era

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