Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T20:10:14.685Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Paleovegetation Simulations of Lowland Amazonia and Implications for Neotropical Allopatry and Speciation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Sharon A. Cowling ,
Mark A. Maslin  and
Martin T. Sykes
Sharon A. Cowling
Affiliation:
Climate Impacts Group, Institute of Ecology, Lund University, Sweden
Mark A. Maslin
Affiliation:
Environmental Change Research Centre, Department of Geography, University College London, United Kingdom
Martin T. Sykes
Affiliation:
Climate Impacts Group, Institute of Ecology, Lund University, Sweden
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Paleovegetation modeling simulations of the lowland Amazon basin were made to assess the relative importance of glacial climate and atmospheric CO2 for altering vegetation type and structure, as well as to explore the potential physiological mechanisms underlying these ecosystem-level responses. Modeling results support the view that widespread invasion of grasslands into the Amazon lowlands during the last glaciation was not likely. Glacial cooling was probably responsible for maintaining glacial forest cover via its effects in reducing photorespiration and decreasing evapotranspiration, which collectively improve plant carbon and water relations. Modeling results confirm that leaf area index (LAI), a common proxy for canopy density, is highly sensitive to independent and interactive changes in climate and low concentration of atmospheric CO2, and the results show considerable region-to-region variation during the last glaciation. Heterogeneous variations in glacial vegetation LAI may have promoted allopatric speciation by geographically isolating species (called vicariance) in the forest (sub)canopy. The proposed vicariance hypothesis incorporating spatial variations in canopy density conforms to many of the essential tenets addressed by previous neotropical speciation models, but also helps to overcome some of their inconsistencies.

Keywords

vegetation modelingvegetation compositionvegetation structureleaf area index (LAI)last glacial maximum (LGM)allopatric speciationvicariance theoriesplant–climate interactions
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , March 2001 , pp. 140 - 149
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allmon, W.D., (1992). A casual analysis of stages in allopatric speciation. Evolutionary Biology 8, 219–257.Google Scholar
Baker, J.T., Allen, L.H., Boote, K.J., Jones, P., Jones, J.W., (1990). Rice photosynthesis and evapotranspiration in subambient, ambient and superambient carbon dioxide concentrations. Agronomy Journal 82, 834–840.Google Scholar
Bazzaz, F.A., (1984). Dynamics of wet tropical forests and their species strategies. Medina, E., Mooney, H.A., Vazquez-Yanes, C. Physiological Ecology of Plants of the Wet Tropics Dr. W. Junk Publishers, The Hague.233–243.Google Scholar
Bazzaz, F.A., (1998). Tropical forests in a future climate: Changes in biological diversity and impact on the global carbon cycle. Climate Change 39, 317–336.Google Scholar
Brooks, A., Farquhar, G.D., (1995). Effect of temperature on the CO2/O2 specificity of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase and the rate of respiration in the light. Planta 165, 397–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burnham, R.J., Graham, A., (1999). The history of neotropical vegetation: New developments and status. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 86, 546–589.Google Scholar
Bush, M.B., (1996). Amazonian conservation in a changing world. Biological Conservation 76, 219–228.Google Scholar
Bush, M.B., (1994). Amazonian speciation: A necessarily complex model. Journal of Biogeography 21, 5–17.Google Scholar
Chandrasekar-Rao, A., Sunquist, M.E., (1996). Ecology of small mammals in tropical forest habitats of southern India. Journal of Tropical Ecology 12, 561–571.Google Scholar
Chase, T.N., Pielke, R.A., Kittel, T.G.F., Nemani, R., Running, S.W., (1996). Sensitivity of a general circulation model to global changes in leaf area index. Journal of Geophysical Research 101, 7393–7408.Google Scholar
Clark, D.B., Clark, D.A., Rich, P.M., Weiss, S., Oberbauer, S.F., (1996). Landscape scale evaluation of understory light and canopy structure: Methods and application in a neotropical lowland rain forest. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 26, 747–757.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colinvaux, P.A., (1998). A new vicariance model for Amazonian endemics. Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters 7, 95–96.Google Scholar
Colinvaux, P.A., De Oliveira, P.E., Bush, M.B., (2000). Amazonian and neotropical plant communities on glacial time-scales: The failure of the aridity and refuge hypotheses. Quaternary Science Reviews 19, 141–169.Google Scholar
Colinvaux, P.A., Bush, M.B., Steinitz-Kannan, M., Miller, M.C., (1997). Glacial and postglacial pollen records from the Ecudorian Andes and Amazon. Quaternary Research 48, 69–78.Google Scholar
Collatz, G.J., Ball, J.T., Grivet, C., Berry, J.A., (1991). Physiological and environmental regulation of stomatal conductance, photosynthesis and transpiration: A model that includes a laminar boundary layer. Agriculture and Forest Meteorology 54, 107–136.Google Scholar
Collatz, G.J., Ribas-Carbo, M., Berry, J.A., (1992). Coupled photosynthesis–stomatal conductance model for leaves of C4 plants. Australian Journal of Plant Physiology 19, 519–538.Google Scholar
Condit, R., Hubbell, S.P., LaFrankie, J.V., Sukumar, R., Manokaran, N., Foster, R.B., Ashton, P.S., (1996). Species–area and species–individual relationships for tropical trees: A comparison of three 50-ha plots. Journal of Ecology 94, 549–562.Google Scholar
Cook, S., (1998). A diversity of approaches to the study of species richness. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 13, 340–341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowling, S.A., (1999). Simulated effects of low atmospheric CO2 on structure and composition of North American vegetation at the last glacial maximum. Global Ecology and Biogeography 8, 81–93.Google Scholar
Cowling, S.A., (1999). Plants and temperature–CO2 uncoupling. Science 285, 1500–1501.Google Scholar
Cowling, S.A., Sage, R.F., (1998). Interactive effects of low atmospheric CO2 and elevated temperature on growth, photosynthesis. Phaseolus vulgaris. Plant, Cell and Environment 21, 427–435.Google Scholar
Didham, R.K., Hammond, P.M., Lawton, J.H., Eggleton, P., Stork, N.E., (1998). Beetle species responses to tropical forest fragmentation. Ecological Monographs 68, 295–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dippery, J.K., Tissue, D.T., Thomas, R.B., Strain, R.B., (1995). Effects of low and elevated CO2 on C3 and C4 annuals. I. Growth and biomass allocation. Oecologia 101, 13–20.Google Scholar
Dyer, L.A., Letourneau, D.K., (1999). Trophic cascades in a complex terrestrial community. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 96, 5072–5076.Google Scholar
Farquhar, G.D., von Caemmerer, S., Berry, J.A., (1980). A biochemical model of photosynthetic CO2 assimilation in leaves of C3 species. Planta 149, 78–90.Google Scholar
Gentry, A.H., Dodson, C., (1987). Diversity and biogeography of neotropical vascular epiphytes. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 74, 205–233.Google Scholar
Haberle, S.G., Maslin, M.A., (1999). Late Quaternary vegetation and climate change in the Amazon basin based on a 50,000 year pollen record from the Amazon Fan, ODP Site 932. Quaternary Research 51, 27–38.Google Scholar
Haffer, J., (1997). Alternative models of vertebrate speciation in Amazonia: An overview. Biodiversity and Conservation 6, 451–476.Google Scholar
Haffer, J., (1969). Speciation in Amazonian forest birds. Science 165, 131–137.Google Scholar
Haxeltine, A., Prentice, I.C., (1996). BIOME3: An equilibrium terrestrial biosphere model based on ecophysiological constraints, resource availability, and competition among plant functional types. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 10, 693–709.Google Scholar
Haxeltine, A., Prentice, I.C., Creswell, I.D., (1996). A coupled carbon and water flux model to predict vegetation structure. Journal of Vegetation Science 7, 651–666.Google Scholar
Hooghiemstra, H., van der Hammen, T., (1998). Neogene and Quaternary development of the neotropical rain forest: The forest refugia hypothesis, and a literature overview. Earth Science Review 44, 147–183.Google Scholar
Jackson, S.T., Webb, R.S., Anderson, K.H., Overpeck, J.T., Webb, T., Williams, J.W., Hansen, B.C.S., (2000). Vegetation and environment in eastern North America during the last glacial maximum. Quaternary Science Reviews 19, 489–508.Google Scholar
Kaspari, M., (1993). Body-size and microclimate use in neotropical granivorous ants. Oecologia 96, 500–507.Google Scholar
Keys, A.J., (1986). Rubisco: Its role in photorespiration. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B 313, 325–336.Google Scholar
Kutzbach, J., Gallimore, R., Harrison, S., Behling, P., Selin, R., Larrif, F., (1998). Climate and biome simulations for the past 21,000 years. Quaternary Science Reviews 17, 473–506.Google Scholar
Larcher, W., (1995). Physiological Plant Ecology. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.Google Scholar
Lawlor, D.W., (1995). Photosynthesis, productivity and environment. Journal of Experimental Botany 46, 1149–1461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leemans, R, and Cramer, W. (1991)., The IIASA Climate Database for Mean Monthly Values of Temperature, Precipitation, and Cloudiness on a Terrestrial Grid. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria.Google Scholar
Letourneau, D.K., Dyer, L.A., (1998). Experimental test in lowland tropical forest shows top-down effects through four trophic levels. Ecology 79, 1678–1687.Google Scholar
Lorenz, S., Grieger, B., Helbig, P., Herterich, K., (1996). Investigating the sensitivity of the atmospheric general circulation model, ECHAM, to palaeoclimate boundary conditions. Geologische Rundschau 85, 513–524.Google Scholar
Lowman, M.D., Wittman, P.K., (1996). Forest canopies: Methods, hypotheses and future directions. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 27, 55–81.Google Scholar
Martens, S.N., Breshears, D.D., Meyer, C.W., (2000). Spatial distributions of understory light along the grassland/forest continuum: Effects of cover, height, and spatial pattern of tree canopies. Ecological Modelling 126, 79–93.Google Scholar
Mayeux, H.S., Johnson, H.B., Polley, H.W., Malone, S.R., (1997). Yield of wheat across a subambient carbon dioxide gradient. Global Change Biology 3, 269–278.Google Scholar
Meave, J., Kellman, M., MacDougall, A., Rosales, J., (1991). Riparian habitats as tropical forest refugia. Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters 1, 69–76.Google Scholar
Metcalfe, D.J., Grubb, P.J., Turner, L.M., (1998). The ecology of very small-seeded shade-tolerant trees and shrubs in lowland rain forest in Singapore. Plant Ecology 134, 131–149.Google Scholar
Nadkarni, N.M., (1994). Diversity of species and interactions in the upper tree canopy of forest ecosystems. American Zoologist 34, 70–78.Google Scholar
Pagani, M.A., Arthur, M.A., Freeman, K.H., (1999). Miocene evolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Paleoceanography 14, 273–292.Google Scholar
Pearson, P.N., Palmer, M.R., (1999). Middle Eocene seawater pH and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Science 284, 1824–1826.Google Scholar
Petit, J. R., Jouzel, J., Raynaud, D., et al.(1999). Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica . Nature 399, 429–436.Google Scholar
Pielke, R.A., Avissar, R., Raupach, M., Dolman, A.J., Zeng, X.B., Denning., A.S., (1998). Interactions between the atmosphere and terrestrial ecosystems: Influence on weather and climate. Global Change Biology 4, 461–475.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitman, N.C.A., Terborgh, J., Silman, M.R., Nunez, V.P., (1999). Tree species distributions in an upper Amazonian forest. Ecology 80, 2651–2661.Google Scholar
Prance, G.T., (1996). Islands in Amazonia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B 351, 823–833.Google Scholar
Shanker, K., Sukumar, R., (1998). Community structure and demography of small-mammal populations in insular montane forests in southern India. Oecologia 116, 243–251.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stauffer, B., Blunier, T., Dallenback, A., (1998). Atmospheric CO2 concentration and millennial-scale climate change during the last glacial period. Nature 392, 59–62.Google Scholar
Stevens, S.M., Husband, T.P., (1998). The influence of edge on small mammals: Evidence from Brazilian Atlantic forest fragments. Biological Conservation 85, 1–8.Google Scholar
Svenning, J.C., (1999). Microhabitat specialisation in a species-rich palm community in Amazonian Ecuador. Journal of Ecology 87, 55–65.Google Scholar
Tissue, D.T., Griffin, K.L., Thomas, R.B., Strain, B.R., (1995). Effects of low and elevated CO2 on C3 and C4 annuals. II. Photosynthesis and leaf biogeochemistry. Oecologia 101, 21–28.Google Scholar
Vazquez, J.A., Givnish, T.J., (1998). Altitudinal gradients in tropical forest composition, structure and diversity in the Sierra de Manantlan, Jalisco, Mexico. Journal of Ecology 86, 999–1020.Google Scholar
Wayne, P.M., Bazzaz, F.A., (1997). Light acquisition and growth by competing individuals in CO2-enriched atmospheres: Consequences for size structure in regenerating birch stands. Journal of Ecology 85, 29–42.Google Scholar
Willis, K.J., Whittaker, R.J., (2000). The refugial debate. Science 287, 1406–1407.Google Scholar
Williams-Linera, G., Dominguez-Gastelu, V., Garcia-Zurita, M.E., (1998). Microenvironment and floristics of different edges in a fragmented tropical rainforest. Conservation Biology 12, 1091–1102.Google Scholar
Woodward, I.F., (1987). Climate and Plant Distributions. Cambridge Univ. Press, New York.Google Scholar