Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé :  
The complex structure of tree bark reflects its many functions, which include structural support as well as defence against fire, pests and pathogens. Thick bark, however, might limit respiration by the living tissues of the trunk. Nevertheless, little research has addressed community-level variation in bark thickness, and to the best of our knowledge, no one has tested multiple hypotheses to explain variation in bark thickness. We conducted an extensive survey of bark thickness within and among species of trees in the tropical rain forests of French Guiana. Trunk bark thickness increased by 1.2 mm per 10 cm increase in stem diameter, and varied widely at all taxonomic levels. Mean trunk bark thickness was 4.5 mm (range: 0.5-29 mm), which was less that found in two Amazonian rain forests in previous studies. This survey of bark thickness should be of use for forest management since tree survival through fire is strongly predicted by bark thickness. We combined the survey data with multiple datasets to test several functional hypotheses proposed to explain variation in bark thickness. We found bark to provide an average of 10% of the flexural rigidity of tree stems, which was substantially less than that found in the only other study of bark stiffness. Bark thickness was uncorrelated with species' association with fire-prone habitats, suggesting that the influence of fire on bark thickness does not extend into moist Forests. There was also little evidence that bark thickness is affected by its function as a defence against herbivory. Nor was there evidence that thick bark limits trunk respiration. A re-analysis of previously collected anatomical data indicated that variation in rhytidome (non-conducting outer bark) thickness explains much of the variation in overall bark thickness. As rhytidome is primarily involved in protecting the living tissues of the trunk, we suggest that bark thickness is driven mostly by its defensive function. Functional explanations for the variation in bark thickness were not clear-cut. Nevertheless, this study provides a foundation for further investigation of the functional bases of bark in tropical trees.
ISSN: 0269-8463

hal-01032124
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01032124
DOI : 10.1111/j.1365-2435.2010.01736.x

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : 1. Resource control over abundance, structure and functional diversity of soil microbial communities is a key determinant of soil processes and related ecosystem functioning. Copiotrophic organisms tend to be found in environments which are rich in nutrients, particularly carbon, in contrast to oligotrophs, which survive in much lower carbon concentrations. We hypothesized that microbial biomass, activity and community structure in nutrient-poor soils of an Amazonian rain forest are limited by multiple elements in interaction. We tested this hypothesis with a fertilization experiment by adding C (as cellulose), N (as urea) and P (as phosphate) in all possible combinations to a total of 40 plots of an undisturbed tropical forest in French Guiana. After 2years of fertilization, we measured a 47% higher biomass, a 21% increase in substrate-induced respiration rate and a 5-fold higher rate of decomposition of cellulose paper discs of soil microbial communities that grew in P-fertilized plots compared to plots without P fertilization. These responses were amplified with a simultaneous C fertilization suggesting P and C colimitation of soil micro-organisms at our study site. Moreover, P fertilization modified microbial community structure (PLFAs) to a more copiotrophic bacterial community indicated by a significant decrease in the Gram-positive:Gram-negative ratio. The Fungi:Bacteria ratio increased in N fertilized plots, suggesting that fungi are relatively more limited by N than bacteria. Changes in microbial community structure did not affect rates of general processes such as glucose mineralization and cellulose paper decomposition. In contrast, community level physiological profiles under P fertilization combined with either C or N fertilization or both differed strongly from all other treatments, indicating functionally different microbial communities. While P appears to be the most critical from the three major elements we manipulated, the strongest effects were observed in combination with either supplementary C or N addition in support of multiple element control on soil microbial functioning and community structure. We conclude that the soil microbial community in the studied tropical rain forest and the processes it drives is finely tuned by the relative availability in C, N and P. Any shifts in the relative abundance of these key elements may affect spatial and temporal heterogeneity in microbial community structure, their associated functions and the dynamics of C and nutrients in tropical ecosystems.
ISSN: 0269-8463

hal-01204229
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01204229
DOI : 10.1111/1365-2435.12329
PRODINRA : 311389

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : Negative density dependence (NDD) and environmental filtering (EF) shape community assembly, but their relative importance is poorly understood. Recent studies have shown that seedlings mortality risk is positively related to the phylogenetic relatedness of neighbours. However, natural enemies, whose depredations often cause NDD, respond to functional traits of hosts rather than phylogenetic relatedness per se. To understand the roles of NDD and EF in community assembly, we assessed the effects on seedling mortality of functional similarity, phylogenetic relatedness and stem density of neighbouring seedlings and adults in a species-rich tropical forest. Mortality risks increased for common species when their functional traits departed substantially from the neighbourhood mean, and for all species when surrounded by close relatives. This indicates that NDD affects community assembly more broadly than does EF, and leads to the tentative conclusion that natural enemies respond to phylogenetically correlated traits. Our results affirm the prominence of NDD in structuring species-rich communities.
ISSN: 1461-023X

hal-01032429
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01032429
DOI : 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2011.01705.x

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : Analyses of tree diversity and community composition in tropical rain forests are usually based either on general herbarium data or on a restricted number of botanical plots. Despite their high taxonomic accuracy, both types of data are difficult to extrapolate to landscape scales. Meanwhile, forestry surveys provide quantitative occurrence data on large areas, and are thus increasingly used for landscape-scale analyses of tree diversity. However, the reliability of these approaches has been challenged because of the ambiguity of the common (vernacular) names used by foresters and the complexity of tree taxonomy in those hyper-diverse communities.We developed and tested a novel approach to evaluate taxonomic reliability of forestry surveys and to propagate the resulting uncertainty in the estimates of several diversity indicators (alpha and beta entropy, Fisher-alpha and Sørensen similarity). Our approach is based on Monte-Carlo processes that simulate communities by taking into account the expected accuracy and reliability of common names. We tested this method in French Guiana, on 9 one-hectare plots (4279 trees – DBH ⩾ 10 cm) for which both common names and standardized taxonomic determinations were available. We then applied our method of community simulation on large forestry inventories (560 ha) at the landscape scale and compared the diversity indices obtained for 10 sites with those computed from precise botanical determination situated at the same localities.We found that taxonomic reliability of forestry inventories varied from 22% (species level) to 83% (family level) in this Amazonian region. Indices computed directly with raw forestry data resulted in incorrect values, except for Gini–Simpson beta-diversity. On the contrary, our correction method provides more accurate diversity estimates, highly correlated with botanical measurements, for almost all diversity indices at both regional and local scales. We obtained a robust ranking of sites consistent with those shown by botanical inventories.These results show that (i) forestry inventories represent a significant part of taxonomic information, (ii) the relative diversity of regional sites can be successfully ranked using forestry inventory data using our method and (iii) forestry inventories can valuably contribute to the detection of large-scale diversity patterns when biases are well-controlled and corrected.The tools we developed as R-functions are available in supplementary material and can be adapted with local parameters to be used for forest management and conservation issues in other regional contexts
ISSN: 0378-1127

hal-01204219
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01204219
DOI : 10.1016/j.foreco.2014.05.045
PRODINRA : 286554

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Public Library of Science
Résumé : International audience
While the populations of large herbivores are being depleted in many tropical rainforests, the importance of their trophic role in the ecological functioning and biodiversity of these ecosystems is still not well evaluated. This is due to the outstanding plant diversity that they feed upon and the inherent difficulties involved in observing their elusive behaviour. Classically, the diet of elusive tropical herbivores is studied through the observation of browsing signs and macroscopic analysis of faeces or stomach contents. In this study, we illustrate that the original coupling of classic methods with genetic and ethnobotanical approaches yields information both about the diet diversity, the foraging modalities and the potential impact on vegetation of the largest terrestrial mammal of Amazonia, the lowland tapir. The study was conducted in the Guianan shield, where the ecology of tapirs has been less investigated. We identified 92 new species, 51 new genera and 13 new families of plants eaten by tapirs. We discuss the relative contribution of our different approaches, notably the contribution of genetic barcoding, used for the first time to investigate the diet of a large tropical mammal, and how local traditional ecological knowledge is accredited and valuable for research on the ecology of elusive animals.
ISSN: 1932-6203

halsde-00676374
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/halsde-00676374
DOI : 10.1371/journal.pone.0025850
PUBMED : 21991372