Abstract: The Amazon Basin has experienced more variable climate over the last decade, with a severe and widespread drought in 2005 causing large basin-wide losses of biomass. A drought of similar climatological magnitude occurred again in 2010; however, there has been no basin-wide ground-based evaluation of effects on vegetation. We examine to what extent the 2010 drought affected forest dynamics using ground-based observations of mortality and growth from an extensive forest plot network. We find that during the 2010 drought interval, forests did not gain biomass (net change: −0.43 Mg ha−1, confidence interval (CI): −1.11, 0.19, n = 97), regardless of whether forests experienced precipitation deficit anomalies. This contrasted with a long-term biomass sink during the baseline pre-2010 drought period (1998 to pre-2010) of 1.33 Mg ha−1 yr−1 (CI: 0.90, 1.74, p < 0.01). The resulting net impact of the 2010 drought (i.e., reversal of the baseline net sink) was −1.95 Mg ha−1 yr−1 (CI:−2.77, −1.18; p < 0.001). This net biomass impact was driven by an increase in biomass mortality (1.45 Mg ha−1 yr−1 CI: 0.66, 2.25, p < 0.001) and a decline in biomass productivity (−0.50 Mg ha−1 yr−1, CI:−0.78, −0.31; p < 0.001). Surprisingly, the magnitude of the losses through tree mortality was unrelated to estimated local precipitation anomalies and was independent of estimated local pre-2010 drought history. Thus, there was no evidence that pre-2010 droughts compounded the effects of the 2010 drought. We detected a systematic basin-wide impact of the 2010 drought on tree growth rates across Amazonia, which was related to the strength of the moisture deficit. This impact differed from the drought event in 2005 which did not affect productivity. Based on these ground data, live biomass in trees and corresponding estimates of live biomass in lianas and roots, we estimate that intact forests in Amazonia were carbon neutral in 2010 (−0.07 Pg C yr−1 CI:−0.42, 0.23), consistent with results from an independent analysis of airborne estimates of land-atmospheric fluxes during 2010. Relative to the long-term mean, the 2010 drought resulted in a reduction in biomass carbon uptake of 1.1 Pg C, compared to 1.6 Pg C for the 2005 event. ©2016. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.

Abstract: Fish smoking with local wood species is a traditional practice in French Guiana. We evaluated the carcinogenic risk and the smoky taste in acoupa weakfish (Cynoscion acoupa) smoked by a small Guianese company specializing in fish smoking using local wood species. The goal of this study is to promote regional economic development by encouraging the establishment of small companies offering fish smoked with local wood species in agreement with the European health norms in terms of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) content in smoked fish. The fish smoked with three species of wood traditionally used in French Guiana, Parinari campestris, Caesaria grandiflora, and Laetia procera, conformed to European standards for PAH content. Their phenol contents (correlated with the smoky taste) were close to smoked salmon, the reference in Europe. Given the low rate of extractable compounds in these woods, other flavors had little chance of predominating on the smoky taste. These three tropical wood species might be used for the production of cold smoked fish in compliance with European standards for PAH residues. The flavor and consumer's acceptance of the smoked fish should now be investigated to characterize the added typicity of local woods in comparison to the commonly used European woods. © 2016 Society of Ethnobiology.

Abstract: Mapping forest aboveground biomass (AGB) has become an important task, particularly for the reporting of carbon stocks and changes. AGB can be mapped using synthetic aperture radar data (SAR) or passive optical data. However, these data are insensitive to high AGB levels (>150 Mg/ha, and >300 Mg/ha for P-band), which are commonly found in tropical forests. Studies have mapped the rough variations in AGB by combining optical and environmental data at regional and global scales. Nevertheless, these maps cannot represent local variations in AGB in tropical forests. In this paper, we hypothesize that the problem of misrepresenting local variations in AGB and AGB estimation with good precision occurs because of both methodological limits (signal saturation or dilution bias) and a lack of adequate calibration data in this range of AGB values. We test this hypothesis by developing a calibrated regression model to predict variations in high AGB values (mean >300 Mg/ha) in French Guiana by a methodological approach for spatial extrapolation with data from the optical geoscience laser altimeter system (GLAS), forest inventories, radar, optics, and environmental variables for spatial inter- and extrapolation. Given their higher point count, GLAS data allow a wider coverage of AGB values. We find that the metrics from GLAS footprints are correlated with field AGB estimations (R2 = 0.54, RMSE = 48.3 Mg/ha) with no bias for high values. First, predictive models, including remote-sensing, environmental variables and spatial correlation functions, allow us to obtain “wall-to-wall” AGB maps over French Guiana with an RMSE for the in situ AGB estimates of ∼50 Mg/ha and R2 = 0.66 at a 1-km grid size. We conclude that a calibrated regression model based on GLAS with dependent environmental data can produce good AGB predictions even for high AGB values if the calibration data fit the AGB range. We also demonstrate that small temporal and spatial mismatches between field data and GLAS footprints are not a problem for regional and global calibrated regression models because field data aim to predict large and deep tendencies in AGB variations from environmental gradients and do not aim to represent high but stochastic and temporally limited variations from forest dynamics. Thus, we advocate including a greater variety of data, even if less precise and shifted, to better represent high AGB values in global models and to improve the fitting of these models for high values. © 2016 Elsevier B.V.

Abstract: The relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem productivity has been explored in detail in herbaceous vegetation, but patterns in forests are far less well understood. Liang et al. have amassed a global forest data set from >770,000 sample plots in 44 countries. A positive and consistent relationship can be discerned between tree diversity and ecosystem productivity at landscape, country, and ecoregion scales. On average, a 10% loss in biodiversity leads to a 3% loss in productivity. This means that the economic value of maintaining biodiversity for the sake of global forest productivity is more than fivefold greater than global conservation costs.Science, this issue p. 196INTRODUCTIONThe biodiversity-productivity relationship (BPR; the effect of biodiversity on ecosystem productivity) is foundational to our understanding of the global extinction crisis and its impacts on the functioning of natural ecosystems. The BPR has been a prominent research topic within ecology in recent decades, but it is only recently that we have begun to develop a global perspective.RATIONALEForests are the most important global repositories of terrestrial biodiversity, but deforestation, forest degradation, climate change, and other factors are threatening approximately one half of tree species worldwide. Although there have been substantial efforts to strengthen the preservation and sustainable use of forest biodiversity throughout the globe, the consequences of this diversity loss pose a major uncertainty for ongoing international forest management and conservation efforts. The forest BPR represents a critical missing link for accurate valuation of global biodiversity and successful integration of biological conservation and socioeconomic development. Until now, there have been limited tree-based diversity experiments, and the forest BPR has only been explored within regional-scale observational studies. Thus, the strength and spatial variability of this relationship remains unexplored at a global scale.RESULTSWe explored the effect of tree species richness on tree volume productivity at the global scale using repeated forest inventories from 777,126 permanent sample plots in 44 countries containing more than 30 million trees from 8737 species spanning most of the global terrestrial biomes. Our findings reveal a consistent positive concave-down effect of biodiversity on forest productivity across the world, showing that a continued biodiversity loss would result in an accelerating decline in forest productivity worldwide.The BPR shows considerable geospatial variation across the world. The same percentage of biodiversity loss would lead to a greater relative (that is, percentage) productivity decline in the boreal forests of North America, Northeastern Europe, Central Siberia, East Asia, and scattered regions of South-central Africa and South-central Asia. In the Amazon, West and Southeastern Africa, Southern China, Myanmar, Nepal, and the Malay Archipelago, however, the same percentage of biodiversity loss would lead to greater absolute productivity decline.CONCLUSIONOur findings highlight the negative effect of biodiversity loss on forest productivity and the potential benefits from the transition of monocultures to mixed-species stands in forestry practices. The BPR we discover across forest ecosystems worldwide corresponds well with recent theoretical advances, as well as with experimental and observational studies on forest and nonforest ecosystems. On the basis of this relationship, the ongoing species loss in forest ecosystems worldwide could substantially reduce forest productivity and thereby forest carbon absorption rate to compromise the global forest carbon sink. We further estimate that the economic value of biodiversity in maintaining commercial forest productivity alone is $166 billion to $490 billion per year. Although representing only a small percentage of the total value of biodiversity, this value is two to six times as much as it would cost to effectively implement conservation globally. These results highlight the necessity to reassess biodiversity valuation and the potential benefits of integrating and promoting biological conservation in forest resource management and forestry practices worldwide.Global effect of tree species diversity on forest productivity.Ground-sourced data from 777,126 global forest biodiversity permanent sample plots (dark blue dots, left), which cover a substantial portion of the global forest extent (white), reveal a consistent positive and concave-down biodiversity-productivity relationship across forests worldwide (red line with pink bands representing 95% confidence interval, right).The biodiversity-productivity relationship (BPR) is foundational to our understanding of the global extinction crisis and its impacts on ecosystem functioning. Understanding BPR is critical for the accurate valuation and effective conservation of biodiversity. Using ground-sourced data from 777,126 permanent plots, spanning 44 countries and most terrestrial biomes, we reveal a globally consistent positive concave-down BPR, showing that continued biodiversity loss would result in an accelerating decline in forest productivity worldwide. The value of biodiversity in maintaining commercial forest productivity alone—US$166 billion to 490 billion per year according to our estimation—is more than twice what it would cost to implement effective global conservation. This highlights the need for a worldwide reassessment of biodiversity values, forest management strategies, and conservation priorities.

Abstract: The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used this evidence base to develop global and regional statistical models of how local biodiversity responds to these measures. We describe and make freely available this 2016 release of the database, containing more than 3.2 million records sampled at over 26,000 locations and representing over 47,000 species. We outline how the database can help in answering a range of questions in ecology and conservation biology. To our knowledge, this is the largest and most geographically and taxonomically representative database of spatial comparisons of biodiversity that has been collated to date; it will be useful to researchers and international efforts wishing to model and understand the global status of biodiversity. © 2016 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.