Rodolfo Vasquez

TL;DR: Records from multiple long-term monitoring plots across Amazonia are used to assess forest responses to the intense 2005 drought, a possible analog of future events that may accelerate climate change through carbon losses and changed surface energy balances.

TL;DR: The finding that Amazonia is dominated by just 227 tree species implies that most biogeochemical cycling in the world’s largest tropical forest is performed by a tiny sliver of its diversity.

TL;DR: By using the seven forest inventories complemented with trait and inventory data collected elsewhere, two dominant gradients in tree composition and function across the Amazon are shown, one paralleling a major gradient in soil fertility and the other paralleled a gradient in dry season length.

TL;DR: It is indicated that repeated droughts would shift the functional composition of tropical forests toward smaller, denser-wooded trees, suggesting the existence of moisture stress thresholds beyond which some tropical forests would suffer catastrophic tree mortality.

TL;DR: Analysis of plant distributions, archaeological sites, and environmental data indicates that modern tree communities in Amazonia are structured to an important extent by a long history of plant domestication by Amazonian peoples.