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Climatic controls of decomposition drive the global biogeography of forest-tree symbioses

Nature volume 569, pages 404–408 (2019)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 28 June 2019

This article has been updated

Abstract

The identity of the dominant root-associated microbial symbionts in a forest determines the ability of trees to access limiting nutrients from atmospheric or soil pools1,2, sequester carbon3,4 and withstand the effects of climate change5,6. Characterizing the global distribution of these symbioses and identifying the factors that control this distribution are thus integral to understanding the present and future functioning of forest ecosystems. Here we generate a spatially explicit global map of the symbiotic status of forests, using a database of over 1.1 million forest inventory plots that collectively contain over 28,000 tree species. Our analyses indicate that climate variables—in particular, climatically controlled variation in the rate of decomposition—are the primary drivers of the global distribution of major symbioses. We estimate that ectomycorrhizal trees, which represent only 2% of all plant species7, constitute approximately 60% of tree stems on Earth. Ectomycorrhizal symbiosis dominates forests in which seasonally cold and dry climates inhibit decomposition, and is the predominant form of symbiosis at high latitudes and elevation. By contrast, arbuscular mycorrhizal trees dominate in aseasonal, warm tropical forests, and occur with ectomycorrhizal trees in temperate biomes in which seasonally warm-and-wet climates enhance decomposition. Continental transitions between forests dominated by ectomycorrhizal or arbuscular mycorrhizal trees occur relatively abruptly along climate-driven decomposition gradients; these transitions are probably caused by positive feedback effects between plants and microorganisms. Symbiotic nitrogen fixers—which are insensitive to climatic controls on decomposition (compared with mycorrhizal fungi)—are most abundant in arid biomes with alkaline soils and high maximum temperatures. The climatically driven global symbiosis gradient that we document provides a spatially explicit quantitative understanding of microbial symbioses at the global scale, and demonstrates the critical role of microbial mutualisms in shaping the distribution of plant species.

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Fig. 1: The global distribution of GFBi training data.
Fig. 2: A small number of environmental variables predict the majority of global turnover in forest symbiotic status.
Fig. 3: The distribution of forest symbiotic status across biomes is related to climatic controls over decomposition.
Fig. 4: Global maps of predicted forest-tree symbiotic state.

Data availability

Information regarding symbiotic guild assignments, model selection (including global rasters of our model projections for ectomycorrhizal, arbuscular mycorrhizal and N-fixer proportion of tree basal area) and analyses is available as Supplementary Data. The GFBi database is available upon written request at https://www.gfbinitiative.org/datarequest. Any other relevant data are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

Change history

  • 28 June 2019

    In this Letter, a middle initial and additional affiliation have been added for author G. J. Nabuurs; two statements have been added to the Supplementary Acknowledgements; and a citation to the French National Institute has been added to the Methods; see accompanying Author Correction for further details.

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Acknowledgements

This work was made possible by the Global Forest Biodiversity Database, which represents the work of over 200 independent investigators and their public and private funding agencies (see Supplementary Acknowledgements).

Reviewer information

Nature thanks Martin Bidartondo, David Bohan and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Author information

Author notes

  1. A list of participants and their affiliations appears in the online version of the paper.

  2. These authors contributed equally: B. S. Steidinger, T. W. Crowther, J. Liang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    B. S. Steidinger, M. E. Van Nuland & K. G. Peay

  2. Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    T. W. Crowther, D. Routh & Jean-Francois Bastin

  3. Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    J. Liang & M. Zhou

  4. Research Center of Forest Management Engineering of State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China

    J. Liang, X. Zhao & C. Zhang

  5. Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    G. D. A. Werner

  6. Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St Paul, MN, USA

    P. B. Reich

  7. Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia

    P. B. Reich

  8. Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    G. J. Nabuurs, Mathieu Decuyper, Geerten Hengeveld, Martin Herold, Lourens Poorter & Mart-Jan Schelhaas

  9. Department of Crop and Forest Sciences - Agrotecnio Center (UdL-Agrotecnio), Universitat de Lleida, Lleida, Spain

    S. de-Miguel

  10. Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC), Solsona, Spain

    S. de-Miguel

  11. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy

    N. Picard, Luca Birigazzi & Javier G. P. Gamarra

  12. Cirad, UPR Forêts et Sociétés, University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France

    B. Herault & Plinio Sist

  13. Department of Forestry and Environment, National Polytechnic Institute (INP-HB), Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire

    B. Herault & Irie Casimir Zo-Bi

  14. Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    G. J. Nabuurs

  15. Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland

    Meinrad Abegg & Markus Huber

  16. UFR Biosciences, University Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

    C. Yves Adou Yao

  17. Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Animal Sciences, University of Udine, Udine, Italy

    Giorgio Alberti

  18. Institute of Biometeorology, National Research Council (CNR-IBIMET), Florence, Italy

    Giorgio Alberti

  19. Spatial Ecology and Conservation Laboratory, Department of Tourism, Recreation and Sport Management, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Angelica Almeyda Zambrano

  20. Fundacion ConVida, Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia, UNAD, Medellin, Colombia

    Esteban Alvarez-Davila

  21. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, USA

    Patricia Alvarez-Loayza, Kuswata Kartawinata & Nigel C. A. Pitman

  22. Center for Tropical Research, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Luciana F. Alves

  23. Silviculture and Forest Ecology of the Temperate Zones, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Christian Ammer & Peter Schall

  24. Division of Forest and Forest Resources, Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO), Ås, Norway

    Clara Antón-Fernández

  25. Museo de Historia Natural Noel Kempff Mercado, Universidad Autonoma Gabriel Rene Moreno, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia

    Alejandro Araujo-Murakami, Luzmila Arroyo, Timothy Killeen & Alexander Parada-Gutierrez

  26. European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy

    Valerio Avitabile

  27. UNELLEZ-Guanare, Programa de Ciencias del Agro y el Mar, Herbario Universitario (PORT), Portuguesa, Venezuela

    Gerardo Aymard

  28. School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Timothy Baker, Roel Brienen, Simon Lewis & Oliver Phillips

  29. Department of Geomatics, Forest Research Institute, Raszyn, Poland

    Radomir Bałazy & Krzysztof Stereńczak

  30. Naturalis Biodiversity Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Olaf Banki & Hans ter Steege

  31. Centro Multidisciplinar, Universidade Federal do Acre, Rio Branco, Brazil

    Jorcely Barroso

  32. Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, Washington, DC, USA

    Meredith Bastian

  33. Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation, Mbarara University of Sciences and Technology, Mbarara, Uganda

    Robert Bitariho

  34. Isotope Bioscience Laboratory - ISOFYS, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Pascal Boeckx

  35. Integrated Center for Research, Development and Innovation in Advanced Materials, Nanotechnologies, and Distributed Systems for Fabrication and Control (MANSiD), Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Suceava, Romania

    Olivier Bouriaud

  36. Department of Forest Sciences, Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture, University of São Paulo, Piracicaba, Brazil

    Pedro H. S. Brancalion, Ricardo Cesar & Vanessa Moreno

  37. Bavarian State Institute of Forestry, Freising, Germany

    Susanne Brandl

  38. Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

    Francis Q. Brearley

  39. Institute of Biology, Geobotany and Botanical Garden, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

    Helge Bruelheide

  40. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Helge Bruelheide

  41. Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forest (DAGRI), University of Firenze, Florence, Italy

    Filippo Bussotti

  42. Biological Institute, Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia

    Roberto Cazzolla Gatti

  43. Department of Spatial Regulation, GIS and Forest Policy, Institute of Forestry, Belgrade, Serbia

    Goran Cesljar

  44. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Robin Chazdon & Cory Merow

  45. Tropical Forests and People Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, Maroochydore, Queensland, Australia

    Robin Chazdon, John Herbohn, Andrew Robert Marshall & Sharif A. Mukul

  46. Faculty of Natural Resources Management, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

    Han Y. H. Chen & Eric Searle

  47. Key Laboratory for Humid Subtropical Eco-Geographical Processes of the Ministry of Education, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China

    Han Y. H. Chen

  48. Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Chelsea Chisholm

  49. IFER - Institute of Forest Ecosystem Research, Jilove u Prahy, Czech Republic

    Emil Cienciala

  50. Global Change Research Institute CAS, Brno, Czech Republic

    Emil Cienciala

  51. Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Connie J. Clark & John R. Poulsen

  52. Department of Biology, University of Missouri-St Louis, St Louis, MO, USA

    David Clark

  53. Department of Plant Biology, Institute of Biology, University of Campinas, UNICAMP, Campinas, Brazil

    Carlos A. Joly

  54. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Panama

    Richard Condit & Ervan Rutishauser

  55. Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    David Coomes

  56. Andes to Amazon Biodiversity Program, Madre de Dios, Peru

    Fernando Cornejo Valverde

  57. Facultad de Ciencias Forestales, Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango, Durango, Mexico

    Jose J. Corral-Rivas

  58. Department of Physical and Biological Sciences, The College of Saint Rose, Albany, NY, USA

    Philip Crim

  59. Department of Biology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA

    Philip Crim & Jonathan Cumming

  60. Biology Department, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Selvadurai Dayanandan

  61. Natural Science Department, Universidade Regional de Blumenau, Blumenau, Brazil

    André L. de Gasper

  62. Cirad, UMR EcoFoG, Kourou, French Guiana

    Géraldine Derroire & Aurélie Dourdain

  63. Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Ben DeVries

  64. Institute of Forestry, Belgrade, Serbia

    Ilija Djordjevic & Radovan Nevenic

  65. National Institute of Amazonian Research, Manaus, Brazil

    Amaral Iêda

  66. IRET, Herbier National du Gabon (CENAREST), Libreville, Gabon

    Nestor Laurier Engone Obiang

  67. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Brian Enquist & Brian Maitner

  68. The Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, USA

    Brian Enquist

  69. Department of Environment and Science, Queensland Herbarium, Toowong, Queensland, Australia

    Teresa Eyre, Victor Neldner & Michael Ngugi

  70. Ecole de Foresterie et Ingénierie du Bois, Université Nationale d’Agriculture, Ketou, Benin

    Adandé Belarmain Fandohan

  71. Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Entomology, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic

    Tom M. Fayle

  72. Geography, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Ted R. Feldpausch

  73. Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Joensuu, Finland

    Leena Finér

  74. Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Markus Fischer

  75. Forest Research Institute Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Christine Fletcher

  76. Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences SLU, Umea, Sweden

    Jonas Fridman & Bertil Westerlund

  77. Department of Sustainable Agro-Ecosystems and Bioresources, Research and Innovation Center, Fondazione Edmund Mach, San Michele all’Adige, Italy

    Lorenzo Frizzera, Damiano Gianelle & Mirco Rodeghiero

  78. School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Henry B. Glick & Peter Umunay

  79. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    David Harris & Axel Dalberg Poulsen

  80. Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Andrew Hector

  81. Department of Plant Systematics, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany

    Andreas Hemp

  82. Centre for Conservation Science, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Sandy, UK

    Annika Hillers

  83. Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana, Iquitos, Peru

    Eurídice N. Honorio Coronado

  84. Centre for Invasion Biology, Department of Mathematical Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Cang Hui

  85. Theoretical Ecology Unit, African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cape Town, South Africa

    Cang Hui

  86. Division of Forest Resources Information, Korea Forest Promotion Institute, Seoul, South Korea

    Hyunkook Cho & Ilbin Jung

  87. Institut Agronomique néo-Calédonien (IAC), Equipe Sol & Végétation (SolVeg), Nouméa, New Caledonia

    Thomas Ibanez

  88. Department of Forest Science, Tokyo University of Agriculture, Tokyo, Japan

    Nobuo Imai

  89. Institute of Dendrology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kórnik, Poland

    Andrzej M. Jagodzinski & Jacek Oleksyn

  90. Poznań University of Life Sciences, Department of Game Management and Forest Protection, Poznań, Poland

    Andrzej M. Jagodzinski

  91. Faculty of Biology, Białowieża Geobotanical Station, University of Warsaw, Białowieża, Poland

    Bogdan Jaroszewicz

  92. Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Vivian Johannsen & Sebastian Kepfer-Rojas

  93. Centre for Environment and Life Sciences, CSIRO Land and Water, Floreat, Western Australia, Australia

    Tommaso Jucker

  94. Forestry Faculty, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Mytischi, Russia

    Viktor Karminov, Olga Martynenko & Petr Ontikov

  95. CAVElab – Computational and Applied Vegetation Ecology, Department of Environment, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Elizabeth Kearsley & Hans Verbeeck

  96. CTFS-ForestGEO, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Panama

    David Kenfack

  97. Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences, Colorado Mesa University, Grand Junction, CO, USA

    Deborah Kennard

  98. School of Natural and Built Environments and Future Industries Institute, University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    Gunnar Keppel

  99. Department of Botany, Dr Harisingh Gour Central University, Sagar, India

    Mohammed Latif Khan

  100. Department of Forest Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

    Hyun Seok Kim & Minjee Park

  101. Interdisciplinary Program in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

    Hyun Seok Kim

  102. National Center for Agro Meteorology, Seoul, South Korea

    Hyun Seok Kim

  103. Research Institute for Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

    Hyun Seok Kim

  104. Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Kanehiro Kitayama

  105. Institute for World Forestry, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Michael Köhl & Philip Mundhenk

  106. Institute of Forestry and Rural Engineering, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia

    Henn Korjus, Diana Laarmann & Mait Lang

  107. Ecosystems Services and Management, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria

    Florian Kraxner, Dmitry Schepaschenko & Anatoly Shvidenko

  108. Department of Geography, University College London, London, UK

    Simon Lewis

  109. Faculty of Forestry, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, China

    Huicui Lu

  110. Center for Forest Ecology and Productivity, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    Natalia Lukina & Elena Tikhonova

  111. School of Geography, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Yadvinder Malhi

  112. UMR EcoFoG, AgroParisTech, Kourou, France

    Eric Marcon

  113. Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso, Nova Xavantina, Brazil

    Beatriz Schwantes Marimon & Ben Hur Marimon-Junior

  114. Department of Environment & Geography, University of York, York, UK

    Andrew Robert Marshall

  115. Department of Wildlife Management, College of African Wildlife Management, Mweka, Tanzania

    Emanuel Martin

  116. Departamento de Ecología y Recursos Naturales, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico

    Jorge A. Meave

  117. Universidad del Tolima, Ibagué, Colombia

    Omar Melo-Cruz

  118. Colegio de Profesionales Forestales de Cochabamba, Cochabamba, Bolivia

    Casimiro Mendoza

  119. Jardín Botánico de Missouri, Oxapampa, Peru

    Abel Monteagudo Mendoza & Rodolfo Vasquez Martinez

  120. Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco, Cusco, Peru

    Abel Monteagudo Mendoza

  121. Department of Environmental Management, School of Environmental Science and Management, Independent University Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Sharif A. Mukul

  122. Instituto de Silvicultura e Industria de la Madera, Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango, Durango, Mexico

    Maria G. Nava-Miranda

  123. Universidad Estatal Amazónica, Puyo, Pastaza, Ecuador

    David Neill

  124. Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Pascal Niklaus, Philippe Saner & Bernhard Schmid

  125. Forestry School, Tecnológico de Costa Rica TEC, Cartago, Costa Rica

    Edgar Ortiz-Malavasi

  126. Climate, Fire, and Carbon Cycle Sciences, USDA Forest Service, Durham, NC, USA

    Yude Pan

  127. Centre for Forest Research, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Quebec, Canada

    Alain Paquette

  128. V. N. Sukachev Institute of Forest, FRC KSC, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Krasnoyarsk, Russia

    Elena Parfenova & Nadja Tchebakova

  129. Department of Forestry, World Research Institute, Washington, DC, USA

    Marc Parren

  130. Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, India

    Narayanaswamy Parthasarathy

  131. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA), Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral (UNPA), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnicas (CONICET), Rio Gallegos, Argentina

    Pablo L. Peri

  132. School of Social Sciences and Psychology (Urban Studies), Western Sydney University, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia

    Sebastian Pfautsch

  133. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Manaus, Brazil

    Maria Teresa Piedade, Jochen Schöngart & Natalia Targhetta

  134. Laboratório de Dendrologia e Silvicultura Tropical, Centro de Formação em Ciências Agroflorestais, Universidade Federal do Sul da Bahia, Itabuna, Brazil

    Daniel Piotto & Samir Rolim

  135. Jardín Botánico de Medellín, Medellín, Colombia

    Irina Polo

  136. Chair for Forest Growth and Yield Science, TUM School for Life Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    Hans Pretzsch

  137. Universidad Nacional de la Amazonía Peruana, Iquitos, Peru

    Freddy Ramirez Arevalo

  138. Servicios Ecosistémicos y Cambio Climático (SECC), Fundación Con Vida & Corporación COL-TREE, Medellín, Colombia

    Zorayda Restrepo-Correa

  139. Department of Biological Sciences, Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA

    Anand Roopsind

  140. Tropical Biodiversity Section, MUSE - Museo delle Scienze, Trento, Italy

    Francesco Rovero

  141. Department of Biology, University of Florence, Florence, Italy

    Francesco Rovero

  142. Department of Environmental Sciences, Central University of Jharkhand, Ranchi, India

    Purabi Saikia

  143. Faculty of Biology, Geobotany, University of Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

    Michael Scherer-Lorenzen

  144. National Forest Centre, Forest Research Institute Zvolen, Zvolen, Slovakia

    Vladimír Seben

  145. Université de Lorraine, AgroParisTech, Inra, Silva, Nancy, France

    Josep M. Serra-Diaz

  146. Center for Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing World (BIOCHANGE), Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Josep M. Serra-Diaz & Jens-Christian Svenning

  147. Departamento de Biología, Universidad de la Serena, La Serena, Chile

    Javier Silva-Espejo

  148. Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Natureza, Universidade Federal do Acre, Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil

    Marcos Silveira

  149. Guyana Forestry Commission, Georgetown, French Guiana

    James Singh

  150. Faculty of Science, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam

    Ferry Slik

  151. Plant Systematic and Ecology Laboratory, Department of Biology, Higher Teachers’ Training College, University of Yaoundé, Yaoundé, Cameroon

    Bonaventure Sonké

  152. Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil

    Alexandre F. Souza

  153. Section for Ecoinformatics & Biodiversity, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Jens-Christian Svenning

  154. Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic

    Miroslav Svoboda

  155. Systems Ecology, Free University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Hans ter Steege

  156. Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development (IIC), Georgetown, French Guiana

    Raquel Thomas

  157. Botanical Garden of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Ural State Forest Engineering University, Ekaterinburg, Russia

    Vladimir Usoltsev

  158. LINCGlobal, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC, Madrid, Spain

    Fernando Valladares

  159. Systematic Botany and Functional Biodiversity, Institute of Biology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany

    Fons van der Plas

  160. Silviculture Research Institute, Vietnamese Academy of Forest Sciences, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Tran Van Do

  161. Cirad, UMR-AMAP, CNRS, INRA, IRD, Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France

    Philippe Birnbaum

  162. Centre for the Research and Technology of Agro-Environmental and Biological Sciences, CITAB, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, UTAD, Vila Real, Portugal

    Helder Viana

  163. Agricultural High School, Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Viseu, Portugal

    Helder Viana

  164. Environmental Studies and Research Center, University of Campinas, UNICAMP, Campinas, Brazil

    Simone Vieira

  165. Department of Forest and Wood Science, University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Klaus von Gadow

  166. Key Laboratory of Tropical Biological Resources, Ministry of Education, School of Life and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Hainan University, Haikou, China

    Hua-Feng Wang & Zhi-Xin Zhu

  167. Division of Forestry and Natural Resources, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA

    James Watson

  168. Manaaki Whenua–Landcare Research, Lincoln, New Zealand

    Susan Wiser

  169. Department of Wetland Ecology, Institute for Geography and Geoecology, Karlsruhe Institute for Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Florian Wittmann

  170. Centre for Agricultural Research in Suriname (CELOS), Paramaribo, Suriname

    Verginia Wortel

  171. Tropenbios International, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Roderick Zagt

  172. Polish State Forests, Coordination Center for Environmental Projects, Warsaw, Poland

    Tomasz Zawila-Niedzwiecki

  173. Programa de Pós-graduação em Biologia Vegetal, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, Brazil

    Gabriel Colletta

  174. Spatial Ecology and Conservation Laboratory, School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Eben Broadbent

  175. Flamingo Land Ltd, Kirby Misperton, UK

    Andrew Robert Marshall

  176. Centro Agricoltura, Alimenti, Ambiente, University of Trento, San Michele all’Adige, Italy

    Mirco Rodeghiero

  177. Wild Chimpanzee Foundation, Liberia Office, Monrovia, Liberia

    Annika Hillers

  178. Centro de Modelación y Monitoreo de Ecosistemas, Universidad Mayor, Santiago, Chile

    Christian Salas-Eljatib

  179. Laboratorio de Biometria, Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco, Chile

    Christian Salas-Eljatib

  180. Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway

    Douglas Sheil

Authors
  1. B. S. Steidinger
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  2. T. W. Crowther
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  3. J. Liang
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  4. M. E. Van Nuland
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  5. G. D. A. Werner
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  6. P. B. Reich
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  7. G. J. Nabuurs
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  8. S. de-Miguel
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  9. M. Zhou
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  10. N. Picard
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  11. B. Herault
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  12. X. Zhao
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  13. C. Zhang
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  14. D. Routh
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  15. K. G. Peay
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Consortia

GFBI consortium

  • Meinrad Abegg
  • , C. Yves Adou Yao
  • , Giorgio Alberti
  • , Angelica Almeyda Zambrano
  • , Esteban Alvarez-Davila
  • , Patricia Alvarez-Loayza
  • , Luciana F. Alves
  • , Christian Ammer
  • , Clara Antón-Fernández
  • , Alejandro Araujo-Murakami
  • , Luzmila Arroyo
  • , Valerio Avitabile
  • , Gerardo Aymard
  • , Timothy Baker
  • , Radomir Bałazy
  • , Olaf Banki
  • , Jorcely Barroso
  • , Meredith Bastian
  • , Jean-Francois Bastin
  • , Luca Birigazzi
  • , Philippe Birnbaum
  • , Robert Bitariho
  • , Pascal Boeckx
  • , Frans Bongers
  • , Olivier Bouriaud
  • , Pedro H. S. Brancalion
  • , Susanne Brandl
  • , Francis Q. Brearley
  • , Roel Brienen
  • , Eben Broadbent
  • , Helge Bruelheide
  • , Filippo Bussotti
  • , Roberto Cazzolla Gatti
  • , Ricardo Cesar
  • , Goran Cesljar
  • , Robin Chazdon
  • , Han Y. H. Chen
  • , Chelsea Chisholm
  • , Emil Cienciala
  • , Connie J. Clark
  • , David Clark
  • , Gabriel Colletta
  • , Richard Condit
  • , David Coomes
  • , Fernando Cornejo Valverde
  • , Jose J. Corral-Rivas
  • , Philip Crim
  • , Jonathan Cumming
  • , Selvadurai Dayanandan
  • , André L. de Gasper
  • , Mathieu Decuyper
  • , Géraldine Derroire
  • , Ben DeVries
  • , Ilija Djordjevic
  • , Amaral Iêda
  • , Aurélie Dourdain
  • , Nestor Laurier Engone Obiang
  • , Brian Enquist
  • , Teresa Eyre
  • , Adandé Belarmain Fandohan
  • , Tom M. Fayle
  • , Ted R. Feldpausch
  • , Leena Finér
  • , Markus Fischer
  • , Christine Fletcher
  • , Jonas Fridman
  • , Lorenzo Frizzera
  • , Javier G. P. Gamarra
  • , Damiano Gianelle
  • , Henry B. Glick
  • , David Harris
  • , Andrew Hector
  • , Andreas Hemp
  • , Geerten Hengeveld
  • , John Herbohn
  • , Martin Herold
  • , Annika Hillers
  • , Eurídice N. Honorio Coronado
  • , Markus Huber
  • , Cang Hui
  • , Hyunkook Cho
  • , Thomas Ibanez
  • , Ilbin Jung
  • , Nobuo Imai
  • , Andrzej M. Jagodzinski
  • , Bogdan Jaroszewicz
  • , Vivian Johannsen
  • , Carlos A. Joly
  • , Tommaso Jucker
  • , Viktor Karminov
  • , Kuswata Kartawinata
  • , Elizabeth Kearsley
  • , David Kenfack
  • , Deborah Kennard
  • , Sebastian Kepfer-Rojas
  • , Gunnar Keppel
  • , Mohammed Latif Khan
  • , Timothy Killeen
  • , Hyun Seok Kim
  • , Kanehiro Kitayama
  • , Michael Köhl
  • , Henn Korjus
  • , Florian Kraxner
  • , Diana Laarmann
  • , Mait Lang
  • , Simon Lewis
  • , Huicui Lu
  • , Natalia Lukina
  • , Brian Maitner
  • , Yadvinder Malhi
  • , Eric Marcon
  • , Beatriz Schwantes Marimon
  • , Ben Hur Marimon-Junior
  • , Andrew Robert Marshall
  • , Emanuel Martin
  • , Olga Martynenko
  • , Jorge A. Meave
  • , Omar Melo-Cruz
  • , Casimiro Mendoza
  • , Cory Merow
  • , Abel Monteagudo Mendoza
  • , Vanessa Moreno
  • , Sharif A. Mukul
  • , Philip Mundhenk
  • , Maria G. Nava-Miranda
  • , David Neill
  • , Victor Neldner
  • , Radovan Nevenic
  • , Michael Ngugi
  • , Pascal Niklaus
  • , Jacek Oleksyn
  • , Petr Ontikov
  • , Edgar Ortiz-Malavasi
  • , Yude Pan
  • , Alain Paquette
  • , Alexander Parada-Gutierrez
  • , Elena Parfenova
  • , Minjee Park
  • , Marc Parren
  • , Narayanaswamy Parthasarathy
  • , Pablo L. Peri
  • , Sebastian Pfautsch
  • , Oliver Phillips
  • , Maria Teresa Piedade
  • , Daniel Piotto
  • , Nigel C. A. Pitman
  • , Irina Polo
  • , Lourens Poorter
  • , Axel Dalberg Poulsen
  • , John R. Poulsen
  • , Hans Pretzsch
  • , Freddy Ramirez Arevalo
  • , Zorayda Restrepo-Correa
  • , Mirco Rodeghiero
  • , Samir Rolim
  • , Anand Roopsind
  • , Francesco Rovero
  • , Ervan Rutishauser
  • , Purabi Saikia
  • , Philippe Saner
  • , Peter Schall
  • , Mart-Jan Schelhaas
  • , Dmitry Schepaschenko
  • , Michael Scherer-Lorenzen
  • , Bernhard Schmid
  • , Jochen Schöngart
  • , Eric Searle
  • , Vladimír Seben
  • , Josep M. Serra-Diaz
  • , Christian Salas-Eljatib
  • , Douglas Sheil
  • , Anatoly Shvidenko
  • , Javier Silva-Espejo
  • , Marcos Silveira
  • , James Singh
  • , Plinio Sist
  • , Ferry Slik
  • , Bonaventure Sonké
  • , Alexandre F. Souza
  • , Krzysztof Stereńczak
  • , Jens-Christian Svenning
  • , Miroslav Svoboda
  • , Natalia Targhetta
  • , Nadja Tchebakova
  • , Hans ter Steege
  • , Raquel Thomas
  • , Elena Tikhonova
  • , Peter Umunay
  • , Vladimir Usoltsev
  • , Fernando Valladares
  • , Fons van der Plas
  • , Tran Van Do
  • , Rodolfo Vasquez Martinez
  • , Hans Verbeeck
  • , Helder Viana
  • , Simone Vieira
  • , Klaus von Gadow
  • , Hua-Feng Wang
  • , James Watson
  • , Bertil Westerlund
  • , Susan Wiser
  • , Florian Wittmann
  • , Verginia Wortel
  • , Roderick Zagt
  • , Tomasz Zawila-Niedzwiecki
  • , Zhi-Xin Zhu
  •  & Irie Casimir Zo-Bi

Contributions

K.G.P. and T.W.C. conceived the study; T.W.C., J.L., P.B.R., G.J.N., S.d.-M., M.Z., N.P., B.H., X.Z. and C.Z. conceived and organized the GFBi database; K.G.P., B.S.S., G.D.A.W. and M.E.V.N. compiled the symbiosis database; B.S.S. carried out the primary data analysis; M.E.V.N. and D.R. contributed to data compilation and analysis; B.S.S., T.W.C., M.E.V.N. and K.G.P. wrote the initial manuscript; B.S.S., T.W.C., J.L., M.E.V.N., G.D.A.W., P.B.R., G.J.N., S.d.-M., M.Z., N.P., B.H., X.Z., C.Z. and K.G.P. made substantial revisions to all versions of the manuscript; all other named authors provided forest inventory data and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to T. W. Crowther, J. Liang or K. G. Peay.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Tables 1–8 and Supplementary Figures 1–26.

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Acknowledgments.

Supplementary Data

This zip folder contains Supplementary Data files and a guide showing the climatic controls of decomposition drive the global biogeography of forest tree symbioses.

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Steidinger, B.S., Crowther, T.W., Liang, J. et al. Climatic controls of decomposition drive the global biogeography of forest-tree symbioses. Nature 569, 404–408 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1128-0

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