Woody plant subregions of the Amazon forest

The Amazon forest covers 7.5 million Km2 in nine countries, hosts 25% of the global biodiversity and is a major contributor to the biogeochemical and climatic functioning of the Earth system. Despite its global importance, a regionalization of the Amazon tree flora is still lacking. Clear and data-driven delimitation of subregions is important for macroecological studies, to the identification of metacommunities, and is a requisite for conservation planning.
We aimed at identifying and mapping plant species subregions and investigated their relationships with environmental, historical, and human correlates. We provide the first woody plant regionalization of the entire Amazon forest using a data-driven approach based on assemblage composition patterns.
We compiled data on woody species composition from 301 assemblages based on species occurrences. We then used unconstrained ordination, interpolation and clustering techniques to identify and map discrete woody subregions. Hierarch...