小柯机器人

近日，法国蒙彼利埃大学Maxime Réjou-Méchain等研究人员合作揭示非洲雨林的组成及其对全球变化的脆弱性。相关论文于2021年4月21日在线发表在《自然》杂志上。

研究人员使用了一个非常庞大的数据集（180,000多块田地中的600万棵树木），对非洲中部最主要的树类群的分布进行了建模，并绘制了非洲中部森林的植物区系和功能成分的连续图谱。结果表明，特定分类群分布的不确定性平均化，并显示出高度确定性的组合。研究人员发现气候、土壤类型和人为梯度之间不同的植物区系和功能成分，以及在植物区系上不同的森林类型之间的功能趋同。

将这些空间预测与气候和人为全球变化的情景相结合，分析结果表明北部和南部森林边缘、大西洋森林和刚果民主共和国的大多数森林高度脆弱，预计到2085年气候和人为威胁都将急剧增加。这些结果构成了科学家和政策制定者制定跨国保护和管理战略的关键定量基准，从而为中部非洲森林提供可持续的未来。

据介绍，非洲被认为将在二十一世纪经历大规模、快速的气候变化和人口增长，进而威胁到世界第二大雨林。保护和可持续管理这些非洲森林需要对它们的组成异质性、森林组成的环境驱动因素及其对持续变化的脆弱性有更多的了解。 

附：英文原文

Title: Unveiling African rainforest composition and vulnerability to global change

Author: Maxime Rjou-Mchain, Frdric Mortier, Jean-Franois Bastin, Guillaume Cornu, Nicolas Barbier, Nicolas Bayol, Fabrice Bndet, Xavier Bry, Gilles Dauby, Vincent Deblauwe, Jean-Louis Doucet, Charles Doumenge, Adeline Fayolle, Claude Garcia, Jean-Paul Kibambe Lubamba, Jean-Jol Loumeto, Alfred Ngomanda, Pierre Ploton, Bonaventure Sonk, Catherine Trottier, Ruppert Vimal, Olga Yongo, Raphal Plissier, Sylvie Gourlet-Fleury

Issue&Volume: 2021-04-21

Abstract: Africa is forecasted to experience large and rapid climate change1 and population growth2 during the twenty-first century, which threatens the world’s second largest rainforest. Protecting and sustainably managing these African forests requires an increased understanding of their compositional heterogeneity, the environmental drivers of forest composition and their vulnerability to ongoing changes. Here, using a very large dataset of 6 million trees in more than 180,000 field plots, we jointly model the distribution in abundance of the most dominant tree taxa in central Africa, and produce continuous maps of the floristic and functional composition of central African forests. Our results show that the uncertainty in taxon-specific distributions averages out at the community level, and reveal highly deterministic assemblages. We uncover contrasting floristic and functional compositions across climates, soil types and anthropogenic gradients, with functional convergence among types of forest that are floristically dissimilar. Combining these spatial predictions with scenarios of climatic and anthropogenic global change suggests a high vulnerability of the northern and southern forest margins, the Atlantic forests and most forests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where both climate and anthropogenic threats are expected to increase sharply by 2085. These results constitute key quantitative benchmarks for scientists and policymakers to shape transnational conservation and management strategies that aim to provide a sustainable future for central African forests.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03483-6

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03483-6

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