@article{8580854,
  abstract     = {{Aim: Large tropical trees form the interface between ground and airborne observations, offering a unique opportunity to capture forest properties remotely and to investigate their variations on broad scales. However, despite rapid development of metrics to characterize the forest canopy from remotely sensed data, a gap remains between aerial and field inventories. To close this gap, we propose a new pan‐tropical model to predict plot‐level forest structure properties and biomass from only the largest trees.
Location: Pan‐tropical.
Time period: Early 21st century.
Major taxa studied: Woody plants.
Methods: Using a dataset of 867 plots distributed among 118 sites across the tropics, we tested the prediction of the quadratic mean diameter, basal area, Lorey's height, community wood density and aboveground biomass (AGB) from the ith largest trees.
Results: Measuring the largest trees in tropical forests enables unbiased predictions of plot‐ and site‐level forest structure. The 20 largest trees per hectare predicted quadratic mean diameter, basal area, Lorey's height, community wood density and AGB with 12, 16, 4, 4 and 17.7% of relative error, respectively. Most of the remaining error in biomass prediction is driven by differences in the proportion of total biomass held in medium‐sized trees (50–70 cm diameter at breast height), which shows some continental dependency, with American tropical forests presenting the highest proportion of total biomass in these intermediate‐diameter classes relative to other continents.
Main conclusions: Our approach provides new information on tropical forest structure and can be used to generate accurate field estimates of tropical forest carbon stocks to support the calibration and validation of current and forthcoming space missions. It will reduce the cost of field inventories and contribute to scientific understanding of tropical forest ecosystems and response to climate change.}},
  author       = {{Bastin, Jean-François and Rutishauser, Ervan and Kellner, James R. and Saatchi, Sassan and Pélissier, Raphael and Hérault, Bruno and Slik, Ferry and Bogaert, Jan and De Cannière, Charles and Marshall, Andrew R. and Poulsen, John and Alvarez-Loyayza, Patricia and Andrade, Ana and Angbonga-Basia, Albert and Araujo-Murakami, Alejandro and Arroyo, Luzmila and Ayyappan, Narayanan and de Azevedo, Celso Paulo and Banki, Olaf and Barbier, Nicolas and Barroso, Jorcely G. and Beeckman, Hans and Bitariho, Robert and Boeckx, Pascal and Boehning-Gaese, Katrin and Brandão, Hilandia and Brearley, Francis Q. and Breuer Ndoundou Hockemba, Mireille and Brienen, Roel and Camargo, Jose Luis C. and Campos-Arceiz, Ahimsa and Cassart, Benoit and Chave, Jérôme and Chazdon, Robin and Chuyong, Georges and Clark, David B. and Clark, Connie J. and Condit, Richard and Honorio Coronado, Euridice N. and Davidar, Priya and de Haulleville, Thalès and Descroix, Laurent and Doucet, Jean-Louis and Dourdain, Aurelie and Droissart, Vincent and Duncan, Thomas and Silva Espejo, Javier and Espinosa, Santiago and Farwig, Nina and Fayolle, Adeline and Feldpausch, Ted R. and Ferraz, Antonio and Fletcher, Christine and Gajapersad, Krisna and Gillet, Jean-François and Amaral, Iêda Leão do and Gonmadje, Christelle and Grogan, James and Harris, David and Herzog, Sebastian K. and Homeier, Jürgen and Hubau, Wannes and Hubbell, Stephen P. and Hufkens, Koen and Hurtado, Johanna and Kamdem, Narcisse G. and Kearsley, Elizabeth and Kenfack, David and Kessler, Michael and Labrière, Nicolas and Laumonier, Yves and Laurance, Susan and Laurance, William F. and Lewis, Simon L. and Libalah, Moses B. and Ligot, Gauthier and Lloyd, Jon and Lovejoy, Thomas E. and Malhi, Yadvinder and Marimon, Beatriz S. and Marimon Junior, Ben Hur and Martin, Emmanuel H. and Matius, Paulus and Meyer, Victoria and Mendoza Bautista, Casimero and Monteagudo-Mendoza, Abel and Mtui, Arafat and Neill, David and Parada Gutierrez, Germaine Alexander and Pardo, Guido and Parren, Marc and Parthasarathy, N. and Phillips, Oliver L. and Pitman, Nigel C. A. and Ploton, Pierre and Ponette, Quentin and Ramesh, B. R. and Razafimahaimodison, Jean-Claude and Réjou-Méchain, Maxime and Rolim, Samir Gonçalves and Saltos, Hugo Romero and Rossi, Luiz Marcelo Brum and Spironello, Wilson Roberto and Rovero, Francesco and Saner, Philippe and Sasaki, Denise and Schulze, Mark and Silveira, Marcos and Singh, James and Sist, Plinio and Sonke, Bonaventure and Soto, J. Daniel and de Souza, Cintia Rodrigues and Stropp, Juliana and Sullivan, Martin J. P. and Swanepoel, Ben and ter Steege, Hans and Terborgh, John and Texier, Nicolas and Toma, Takeshi and Valencia, Renato and Valenzuela, Luis and Ferreira, Leandro Valle and Valverde, Fernando Cornejo and Van Andel, Tinde R. and Vasque, Rodolfo and Verbeeck, Hans and Vivek, Pandi and Vleminckx, Jason and Vos, Vincent A. and Wagner, Fabien H. and Warsudi, Papi Puspa and Wortel, Verginia and Zagt, Roderick J. and Zebaze, Donatien}},
  issn         = {{1466-822X}},
  journal      = {{GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY}},
  keywords     = {{carbon,climate change,forest structure,large trees,pan-tropical,REDD,tropical forest ecology,ABOVEGROUND LIVE BIOMASS,CANOPY LEAF-AREA,RAIN-FOREST,AMAZON FOREST,AIRBORNE LIDAR,FRENCH-GUIANA,CARBON,MORTALITY,DYNAMICS,HEIGHT,cavelab}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{11}},
  pages        = {{1366--1383}},
  title        = {{Pan-tropical prediction of forest structure from the largest trees}},
  url          = {{http://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12803}},
  volume       = {{27}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}

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