title: Tropical rainforests that persisted: inferences from the Quaternary demographic history of eight tree species in the Guiana shield.
abstract: How Quaternary climatic and geological disturbances influenced the composition of Neotropical forests is hotly debated. Rainfall and temperature changes during and/or immediately after the last glacial maximum (LGM) are thought to have strongly affected the geographical distribution and local abundance of tree species. The paucity of the fossil records in Neotropical forests prevents a direct reconstruction of such processes. To describe community-level historical trends in forest composition, we turned therefore to inferential methods based on the reconstruction of past demographic changes. In particular, we modelled the history of rainforests in the eastern Guiana Shield over a timescale of several thousand generations, through the application of approximate Bayesian computation and maximum-likelihood methods to diversity data at nuclear and chloroplast loci in eight species or subspecies of rainforest trees. Depending on the species and on the method applied, we detected population contraction, expansion or stability, with a general trend in favour of stability or expansion, with changes presumably having occurred during or after the LGM. These findings suggest that Guiana Shield rainforests have globally persisted, while expanding, through the Quaternary, but that different species have experienced different demographic events, with a trend towards the increase in frequency of light-demanding, disturbance-associated species.
authors.affiliation: UMR EcoFoG ("Ecologie des forêts de Guyane"), UAG, Campus Agronomique, BP 709, 97387, Kourou, French Guiana.|UMR EcoFoG ("Ecologie des forêts de Guyane"), INRA, Campus Agronomique, BP 709, 97387, Kourou, French Guiana.
authors.forename: Stéphanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Barthe
authors.affiliation: DBSV ("Dipartimento di Biotecnologie e Scienze della Vita"), Università degli Studi dell'Insubria, via J.H. Dunant 3, 21100, Varese, Italy.
authors.forename: Giorgio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Binelli
authors.affiliation: UMR EcoFoG ("Ecologie des forêts de Guyane"), CIRAD, Campus Agronomique, BP 709, 97387, Kourou, French Guiana.
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hérault
authors.affiliation: URFM ("Écologie des Forêts Méditerranéennes"), INRA, Domaine Saint_Paul, Site Agroparc, 84914, Avignon, France.
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Scotti-Saintagne
authors.affiliation: UMR AMAP ("Botanique et modélisation de l'architecture des plantes et des végétations"), IRD, Boulevard de la Lironde, Parc Scientifique 2, 34398, Montpellier, France.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sabatier
authors.affiliation: URFM ("Écologie des Forêts Méditerranéennes"), INRA, Domaine Saint_Paul, Site Agroparc, 84914, Avignon, France.
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8951-2680
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Scotti
mesh_terms: D001499:Bayes Theorem; D002980:Climate; D018742:DNA, Chloroplast / Q000235:genetics; D003710:Demography; D005616:French Guiana; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006239:Haplotypes; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008957:Models, Genetic; D058974:Phylogeography; D065947:Rainforest; D014197:Trees / Q000145:classification*
chemical_list: D018742:DNA, Chloroplast
keywords: biogeography; forest ecology; historical demography; neotropics