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Tropical forests share similar mix of common and rare tree species, study shows

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A new study has for the first time identified the most common tree species in the tropical forests of Africa, the Amazon and Southeast Asia — and their similarities have surprised scientists. “The [study] shows some uncanny similarities among the world’s great tropical rainforests,” said tropical ecologist Bill Laurance, who wasn’t affiliated with the study published in the journal Nature. “In terms of their tree communities, rainforests in the Amazon, Africa, and Southeast Asia are all dominated by a few surprisingly ‘common’ species. In each of these regions, about 2.2% of the tree species at any site account for fully half of all the trees there.” Scientists at University College London (UCL) and 356 collaborating researchers analyzed more than 1 million trees across 1,568 locations. They found that despite the unique environmental conditions and histories of tropical forests on each continent, the patterns of tree diversity were strikingly similar. Just 2.2% of tree species accounted for 50% of all trees surveyed. Using statistical techniques and resampling, the researchers compiled a list of the 1,119 most common tree species, the first time the prevalent trees have been identified. Location of the 1,568 plots, tropical forest regions, and tropical forest biome extent used in the study. Dots show the location of the plots analyzed, colored by continental region.  Image courtesy of Cooper et al. (2024). “We wanted to look at tropical forests in a new way. Focusing on a few hundred common tree species on each continent, rather than the many thousands…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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