Amazonian and Andean tree communities are not tracking current climate warming

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Farfan-Rios, William; Feeley, Kenneth J.; Myers, Jonathan A.; Tello, Sebastian; Sallo-Bravo, Jhonatan; Malhi, Yadvinder; Phillips, Oliver L.; Baker, Timothy R.; Nina-Quispe, Alex; Garcia-Cabrera, Karina; Saatchi, Sasan S.; Terborgh, John W.; Pitman, Nigel C. A.; Mendoza, Abel Lorenzo Monteagudo; Vasquez, Rodolfo; Salinas, Norma; Cayola, Leslie; Claros, Alfredo Fuentes; Loza, Maria I.; Vargas, Percy Nunez; Silman, Miles R.
• 署名单位: Wake Forest University; Wake Forest University; Washington University (WUSTL); University of Miami; Washington University (WUSTL); Missouri Botanical Gardens; Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco; University of Oxford; University of Leeds; Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru; Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru; California Institute of Technology; National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA); NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL); University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; State University System of Florida; University of Florida; James Cook University; Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago); Universidad Mayor de San Andres; University of Missouri System; University of Missouri Saint Louis
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-8440
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2425619122
• 发表日期: 2025-08-26
• 关键词: biotic attrition; turnover rates; forests; patterns; TRENDS; shifts; microclimate; mortality

摘要

Climate change is shifting species distributions, leading to changes in community composition and novel species assemblages worldwide. However, the responses of tropical forests to climate change across large-scale environmental gradients remain largely unexplored. Using long-term data over 66,000 trees of more than 2,500 species occurring over 3,500 m elevation along the hyperdiverse Amazon-to-Andes elevational gradients in Peru and Bolivia, we assessed community-level shifts in species composition over a 40+ y time span. We tested the thermophilization hypothesis, which predicts an increase in the relative abundances of species from warmer climates through time. Additionally, we examined the relative contributions of tree mortality, recruitment, and growth to the observed compositional changes. Mean thermophilization rates (TR) across the Amazon-to-Andes gradient were slow relative to regional temperature change. TR were positive and more variable among Andean forest plots compared to Amazonian plots but were highest at midelevations around the cloud base. Across all elevations, TR were driven primarily by tree mortality and decreased growth of highland (cool-adapted) species rather than an influx of lowland species with higher thermal optima. Given the high variability of community-level responses to warming along the elevational gradients, the high tree mortality, and the slower-than-warming rates of compositional change, we conclude that most tropical tree species, and especially lowland Amazonian tree species, will not be able to escape current or future climate change through upward range shifts, causing fundamental changes to composition and function in Earth's highest diversity forests.