Floristic evidence for alternative biome states in tropical Africa.

ABSTRACT: The idea that tropical forest and savanna are alternative states is crucial to how we manage these biomes and predict their future under global change. Large-scale empirical evidence for alternative stable states is limited, however, and comes mostly from the multimodal distribution of structural aspects of vegetation. These approaches have been criticized, as structure alone cannot separate out wetter savannas from drier forests for example, and there are also technical challenges to mapping vegetation structure in unbiased ways. Here, we develop an alternative approach to delimit the climatic envelope of the two biomes in Africa using tree species lists gathered for a large number of forest and savanna sites distributed across the continent. Our analyses confirm extensive climatic overla

SUBMITTER: Aleman JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7668043 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature