英国牛津大学Jesús Aguirre-Gutiérrez团队研究了横跨地球热带森林的冠层功能性状变化。该项研究成果发表在2025年3月5日出版的《自然》杂志上。

热带森林冠层是生物圈中碳、水和能量最集中的大气界面。然而，在大多数地球系统模型中，多样化和异质性的热带森林生物群落被表示为一个基本统一的生态系统，具有单一或少数固定的冠层生态生理特性。这种情况部分是由于对热带森林冠层的功能特性在地理上如何以及为什么不同缺乏了解。

研究组通过将1800多个蔬菜地和树木特征的现场收集数据与卫星遥感、地形、气候和土壤数据相结合，预测了13种树木形态、结构和化学功能特征的变化，并利用这些特征计算和绘制了热带森林的功能多样性图。研究结果表明，热带美洲、非洲和亚洲往往占据热带森林总功能特征空间的不同部分。预计热带美洲森林的功能丰度比热带非洲和亚洲森林高40%。与此同时，非洲森林的功能分化程度最高，分别比热带美洲和亚洲森林高32%和7%。

不确定性分析突出了进一步收集数据的优先区域，这将完善和改进这些地图。该预测代表了对热带森林冠层功能特征在太空中如何以及为什么变化的地面和远程全球分析。

附：英文原文

Title: Canopy functional trait variation across Earth’s tropical forests

Author: Aguirre-Gutirrez, Jess, Rifai, Sami W., Deng, Xiongjie, ter Steege, Hans, Thomson, Eleanor, Corral-Rivas, Jose Javier, Guimaraes, Aretha Franklin, Muller, Sandra, Klipel, Joice, Fauset, Sophie, Resende, Angelica F., Wallin, Gran, Joly, Carlos A., Abernethy, Katharine, Adu-Bredu, Stephen, Alexandre Silva, Celice, de Oliveira, Edmar Almeida, Almeida, Danilo R. A., Alvarez-Davila, Esteban, Asner, Gregory P., Baker, Timothy R., Benchimol, Mara, Bentley, Lisa Patrick, Berenguer, Erika, Blanc, Lilian, Bonal, Damien, Bordin, Kauane, Borges de Lima, Robson, Both, Sabine, Cabezas Duarte, Jaime, Cardoso, Domingos, de Lima, Haroldo C., Cavalheiro, Larissa, Cernusak, Lucas A., dos Santos Prestes, Nayane Cristina C., da Silva Zanzini, Antonio Carlos, da Silva, Ricardo Jos, dos Santos Alves da Silva, Robson, de Andrade Iguatemy, Mariana, De Sousa Oliveira, Tony Csar, Dechant, Benjamin, Derroire, Graldine, Dexter, Kyle G., Rodrigues, Domingos J., Esprito-Santo, Mrio, Silva, Letcia Fernandes, Domingues, Tomas Ferreira, Ferreira, Joice, Simon, Marcelo Fragomeni, Girardin, Ccile A. J., Hrault, Bruno, Jeffery, Kathryn J., Kalpuzha Ashtamoorthy, Sreejith, Kavidapadinjattathil Sivadasan, Arunkumar, Klitgaard, Bente, Laurance, William F., Dan, Maurcio Lima, Magnusson, William E., Campos-Filho, Eduardo Malta, Manoel dos Santos, Rubens, Manzatto, Angelo Gilberto, Silveira, Marcos, Marimon-Junior, Ben Hur, Martin, Roberta E., Vieira, Daniel Luis Mascia, Metzker, Thiago

Issue&Volume: 2025-03-05

Abstract: Tropical forest canopies are the biosphere’s most concentrated atmospheric interface for carbon, water and energy1,2. However, in most Earth System Models, the diverse and heterogeneous tropical forest biome is represented as a largely uniform ecosystem with either a singular or a small number of fixed canopy ecophysiological properties3. This situation arises, in part, from a lack of understanding about how and why the functional properties of tropical forest canopies vary geographically4. Here, by combining field-collected data from more than 1,800 vegetation plots and tree traits with satellite remote-sensing, terrain, climate and soil data, we predict variation across 13 morphological, structural and chemical functional traits of trees, and use this to compute and map the functional diversity of tropical forests. Our findings reveal that the tropical Americas, Africa and Asia tend to occupy different portions of the total functional trait space available across tropical forests. Tropical American forests are predicted to have 40% greater functional richness than tropical African and Asian forests. Meanwhile, African forests have the highest functional divergence—32% and 7% higher than that of tropical American and Asian forests, respectively. An uncertainty analysis highlights priority regions for further data collection, which would refine and improve these maps. Our predictions represent a ground-based and remotely enabled global analysis of how and why the functional traits of tropical forest canopies vary across space.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08663-2

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08663-2