Forest and tree species distribution on the ultramafic substrates of New Caledonia

Birnbaum Philippe, Ibanez Thomas, Blanchard Grégoire, Justeau-Allaire Dimitri, Hequet Vanessa, Eltabet Nathan, Vieilledent Ghislain, Barbier Nicolas, Barrière Romain, Bruy David. 2023. Forest and tree species distribution on the ultramafic substrates of New Caledonia. Botany Letters, 170 (3) : 412-424.

https://doi.org/10.1080/23818107.2023.2181216

Article de revue ; Article de recherche ; Article de revue à facteur d'impact

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Url - jeu de données - Entrepôt autre : https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Forest_and_tree_species_distribution_on_the_ultramafic_substrates_of_New_Caledonia/22341036 / Url - jeu de données - Entrepôt autre : https://zenodo.org/record/7376634

Résumé : About a third of New Caledonia is covered with ultramafic soils (UM) which hosts a rich flora (endemism > 85%) threatened by mining activities. This combination makes the ultramafic vegetation a floristic hotspot within a biodiversity hotspot. UM soils are distributed from sea level to 1618 m elevation with about two-thirds forming a large continuous unit while the remaining forms numerous relatively small isolated units. Here, we provide a synthesis of the distribution of forest and tree species across 22 UM units. We compiled an extensive tree occurrence dataset (109,896 occurrences and 1,065 species) and a new expert-based forest map at a 1:3000 spatial resolution. Only 10% of these species represented more than 50% of the occurrences, while 10% of the species had only one or two occurrences. A quarter of the UM area did not contain any occurrences, and we estimated that on average a quarter of the species remained to be inventoried in the 22 units. Forest covers about one-third of the UM areas with forest coverage ranging from 1.7% to 72.3% in the different UM units. Forest coverage increased from 14.6% on sea level to 93.3% at 1,200 m of elevation. About 30% of the forest and 90% of the species were located within mining concessions, while 14.5% and 73%, respectively, were located within protected areas. We recommend setting up new protected areas on ultramafic substrate, specially in the Northern province, to protect more forest and the diversity it harbours.

Mots-clés Agrovoc : biodiversité forestière, biodiversité, distribution des populations, distribution géographique, distribution spatiale, population végétale, communauté végétale, arbre forestier

Mots-clés géographiques Agrovoc : Nouvelle-Calédonie, France

Mots-clés libres : Canopy structure, Edge effects, Forest biomass, Functional traits, LiDAR, Microclimate, Tropical forest fragmentation, Ultramafic soils

Classification Agris : F70 - Taxonomie végétale et phytogéographie
K70 - Dégâts causés aux forêts et leur protection

Champ stratégique Cirad : CTS 1 (2019-) - Biodiversité

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