Biology subjects

ter Steege, H.

Publications and source records attributed to ter Steege, H..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2020

The erosion of biodiversity and biomass in the Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspot

Tropical forests are being deforested worldwide, and the remaining fragments are suffering from biomass and biodiversity erosion. Quantifying this erosion is challenging because ground data on tropical biodiversity and biomass are often sparse. Here, we use an unprecedented dataset of 1,819 field surveys covering the entire Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspot. We show that 83-85% of the surveys presented losses in forest biomass and tree species richness, functional traits and conservation value. On average, forest fragments had 25-32% less biomass, 23-31% fewer species, and 33%, 36% and 42% fewer individuals of late-successional, large-seeded and endemic species, respectively. Biodiversity and biomass erosion were both lower inside strictly protected conservation units, particularly in large ones. We estimate that biomass erosion across the Atlantic Forest remnants was equivalent to the loss of 55-70 thousand km2 of forests or US$2.3-2.6 billion in carbon credits. These figures have direct implications on mechanisms of climate change mitigation.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2020

Chloroplast genome of the nutmeg tree: Myristica fragrans Houtt. (Myristicaceae)

Myristica fragrans Houtt. (Myristicaceae) is widely used as condiment in western countries as well as a drug in medicinal systems such as the Ayuverda and Unani. The assemblage of its chloroplast genome resulted in a total of 155,894 bp, from which 146 genes were annotated, along with 86 coding regions, 43 exons and 22 introns. This study is a step further in the species characterization and will support future phylogenetic studies within the family.

genetics↗

bioRxiv2020

Defining endemism levels for biodiversity conservation: tree species in the Atlantic Forest hotspot

Endemic species are important for biodiversity conservation. Yet, quantifying endemism remains challenging because endemism concepts can be too strict (i.e., pure endemism) or too subjective (i.e., near endemism). We propose a data-driven approach to objectively estimate the proportion of records inside a given the target area (i.e., endemism level) that optimizes the separation of near-endemics from non-endemic species. We apply this approach to the Atlantic Forest tree flora using millions of herbarium records retrieved from multiple sources. We first report an updated checklist of 5044 species for the Atlantic Forest tree flora and then we compare how species-specific endemism levels obtained from herbarium data match species-specific endemism accepted by taxonomists. We show that an endemism level of 90% separates well pure and near-endemic from non-endemic species, which in the Atlantic Forest revealed an overall endemism ratio of 45% for its tree flora. We also found that the diversity of pure and near endemics and of endemics and overall species was congruent in space. Our results for the Atlantic Forest reinforce that pure and near endemic species can be combined to quantify regional endemism and therefore to set conservation priorities taking into account endemic species distribution. We provided general guidelines on how the proposed approach can be used to assess endemism levels of regional biotas in other parts of the world.

ecology↗