Canopy functional trait variation across Earth's tropical forests.

ABSTRACT: Tropical forest canopies are the biosphere's most concentrated atmospheric interface for carbon, water and energy^1,2. 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

SUBMITTER: Aguirre-Gutierrez J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12043511 | biostudies-literature | 2025 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature