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Unveiling African rainforest composition and vulnerability to global change

dc.contributor.authorRejou-Machain, M.
dc.contributor.authorMortier, F.
dc.contributor.authorBastin, J.F.
dc.contributor.authorCornu, G.
dc.contributor.authorBarbier, N.
dc.contributor.authorBayol, N.
dc.contributor.authorBenedet, F.
dc.contributor.authorBry, X.
dc.contributor.authorDauby, G.
dc.contributor.authorDeblauwe, V.
dc.contributor.authorDoucet, J.L.
dc.contributor.authorDoumenge, C.
dc.contributor.authorFayolle, A.
dc.contributor.authorGarcia, C.
dc.contributor.authorLubamba, J.P.K.
dc.contributor.authorLoumeto, J.J.
dc.contributor.authorNgomanda, A.
dc.contributor.authorPloton, P.
dc.contributor.authorSonke, B.
dc.contributor.authorTrottier, C.
dc.contributor.authorVimal, R.
dc.contributor.authorYongo, O.
dc.contributor.authorPelissier, R.
dc.contributor.authorGourlet-Fleury, S.
dc.date.accessioned2021-05-10T09:34:08Z
dc.date.available2021-05-10T09:34:08Z
dc.date.issued2021
dc.identifier.citationRéjou-Méchain, M., Mortier, F., Bastin, J.F., Cornu, G., Barbier, N., Bayol, N., ... & Gourlet-Fleury, S. (2021). Unveiling African rainforest composition and vulnerability to global change. Nature, 1-28.
dc.identifier.issn0028-0836
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12478/7118
dc.description.abstractAfrica is forecasted to experience large and rapid climate change1 and population growth2 during the twenty-first century, which threatens the world’s second largest rainforest. Protecting and sustainably managing these African forests requires an increased understanding of their compositional heterogeneity, the environmental drivers of forest composition and their vulnerability to ongoing changes. Here, using a very large dataset of 6 million trees in more than 180,000 field plots, we jointly model the distribution in abundance of the most dominant tree taxa in central Africa, and produce continuous maps of the floristic and functional composition of central African forests. Our results show that the uncertainty in taxon-specific distributions averages out at the community level, and reveal highly deterministic assemblages. We uncover contrasting floristic and functional compositions across climates, soil types and anthropogenic gradients, with functional convergence among types of forest that are floristically dissimilar. Combining these spatial predictions with scenarios of climatic and anthropogenic global change suggests a high vulnerability of the northern and southern forest margins, the Atlantic forests and most forests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where both climate and anthropogenic threats are expected to increase sharply by 2085. These results constitute key quantitative benchmarks for scientists and policymakers to shape transnational conservation and management strategies that aim to provide a sustainable future for central African forests.
dc.format.extent1-28
dc.language.isoen
dc.subjectClimate Change
dc.subjectRain Forests
dc.subjectBiodiversity Conservation
dc.subjectBotanical Composition
dc.subjectVulnerability
dc.titleUnveiling African rainforest composition and vulnerability to global change
dc.typeJournal Article
cg.contributor.crpAgriculture for Nutrition and Health
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversité de Montpellier
cg.contributor.affiliationCentre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversity of Liège
cg.contributor.affiliationFormation Professionnelle, France
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversity of California
cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Institute of Tropical Agriculture
cg.contributor.affiliationInstitute of Integrative Biology, Switzerland
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversité de Kinshasa
cg.contributor.affiliationWildlife Conservation Society, Democratic Republic of the Congo
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversité Marien Ngouabi
cg.contributor.affiliationInstitut de Recherche en Écologie Tropicale, Gabon
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversity of Yaoundé 1
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversite Paul Valéry Montpellier
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversité Jean-Jaurès
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversité de Bangui
cg.coverage.regionAfrica
cg.coverage.regionCentral Africa
cg.coverage.countryDemocratic Republic of the Congo
cg.coverage.hubCentral Africa Hub
cg.researchthemeNatural Resource Management
cg.identifier.bibtexciteidREJOUMECHAIN:2021
cg.isijournalISI Journal
cg.authorship.typesCGIAR and developing country institute
cg.iitasubjectClimate Change
cg.iitasubjectForestry
cg.iitasubjectNatural Resource Management
cg.journalNature
cg.notesPublished online: 21 Apr 2021
cg.accessibilitystatusLimited Access
cg.reviewstatusPeer Review
cg.usagerightslicenseCopyrighted; all rights reserved
cg.targetaudienceScientists
cg.identifier.doihttps://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03483-6
cg.iitaauthor.identifierVincent Deblauwe: 0000-0001-9881-1052
cg.futureupdate.requiredNo
cg.contributor.acknowledgementsWe thank the 105 forest companies that provided access, albeit restricted, to their inventory data for research purposes and members of the central African plot network (https://central-african-plot-network.netlify.app/), Y. Yalibanda, F. Allah-Barem, F. Baya, F. Boyemba, M. Mbasi Mbula, P. Berenger, M. Mazengue, V. Istace, I. Zombo, E. Forni, Nature+ and the CEB-Precious Woods company for giving access to the scientific inventories described in Supplementary Fig. 4, some of which were funded by the AFD and the FFEM (for example, DynAfFor and P3FAC projects). We thank J. Chave, P. Couteron, S. Lewis and M. Tadesse for their comments and discussions on previous versions, B. Sultan for useful discussions on climate projections, O. J. Hardy for advice on phylogenetical analyses, B. Locatelli for advice on vulnerability analyses, G. Vieilledent for discussions on the human-induced forest-disturbance intensity index and A. Stokes for English editing. This work was supported by the CoForTips project (ANR‐12‐EBID‐0002) funded by the ERA-NET BiodivERsA, with the national funders ANR, BELSPO and FWF, as part of the 2012 BiodivERsA call for research proposals, the GAMBAS project funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR-18-CE02-0025) and the project 3DForMod funded by the UE FACCE ERA-GAS consortium (ANR-17-EGAS-0002-01). This study is a contribution to the research program of LMI DYCOFAC (Dynamique des écosystèmes continentaux d’Afrique Centrale en contexte de changements globaux).


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