Disturbance maintains alternative biome states

Autor(es)

Dantas, Vinicius de L. ^[1] ; Hirota, Marina ^{[1, 2]} ; Oliveira, Rafael S. ^[1] ; Pausas, Juli G. ^[3]

Afiliação do(s) autor(es)

^[1] Univ Estadual Campinas, UNICAMP, Inst Biol, Dept Plant Biol, Funct Ecol Lab, BR-13083970 Campinas, SP - Brazil

^[2] Univ Fed Santa Catarina, Ctr Phys & Math Sci, BR-88040900 Florianopolis, SC - Brazil

^[3] CSIC, CIDE, Valencia 46113 - Spain

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: ECOLOGY LETTERS; v. 19, n. 1, p. 12-19, JAN 2016.
• Citações Web of Science: 70

Resumo

Understanding the mechanisms controlling the distribution of biomes remains a challenge. Although tropical biome distribution has traditionally been explained by climate and soil, contrasting vegetation types often occur as mosaics with sharp boundaries under very similar environmental conditions. While evidence suggests that these biomes are alternative states, empirical broad-scale support to this hypothesis is still lacking. Using community-level field data and a novel resource-niche overlap approach, we show that, for a wide range of environmental conditions, fire feedbacks maintain savannas and forests as alternative biome states in both the Neotropics and the Afrotropics. In addition, wooded grasslands and savannas occurred as alternative grassy states in the Afrotropics, depending on the relative importance of fire and herbivory feedbacks. These results are consistent with landscape scale evidence and suggest that disturbance is a general factor driving and maintaining alternative biome states and vegetation mosaics in the tropics. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 14/06453-0 - Towards an understanding of tipping points within tropical South American biomes
• Beneficiário: Vinicius de Lima Dantas
• Modalidade de apoio: Bolsas no Brasil - Pós-Doutorado
• Processo FAPESP: 13/50169-1 - Towards an understanding of tipping points within tropical South American biomes
• Beneficiário: Ricardo da Silva Torres
• Modalidade de apoio: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Parceria para Inovação Tecnológica - PITE