NEOSHORTFALLS

Addressing biodiversity shortfalls in Neotropical hyperdiverse forests to improve our understanding of the effects of defaunation on phenotypic traits, species assemblages and biotic interactions

Description

Understanding and reversing global biodiversity decline in the Anthropocene requires robust data on species taxonomic identity, distribution, ecology, interactions, population trends, and evolutionary relationships. Data gaps, or biodiversity shortfalls, limit our understanding of diversity patterns, community organization, and ecosystem maintenance, and reduce the accuracy of biodiversity assessments. These knowledge gaps are especially acute in hyperdiverse tropical ecosystems. In particular, Eltonian (biotic interactions) and Raunkiaeran (species traits) shortfalls create critical blind spots in predicting ecosystem responses to anthropogenic disturbances.

NEOSHORTFALLS aims to reduce these shortfalls in one of the last frontiers of knowledge: the Amazon rainforest, the largest continuous tropical forest on Earth, which underpins much of global climatic and ecological dynamics. The project will use the generated data to assess human impacts at population and community levels. We propose that human-driven defaunation, particularly the loss of large frugivores, triggers cascading effects on community assembly and initiates deeper reorganizations. Under altered abundances, trait mismatches, competitive release, and behavioral flexibility, species may shift, expand, or constrain their interaction niches and topological roles, reshaping the functional landscape of interactions and altering the balance between mutualisms and antagonisms.

This network-level reorganization may produce simplified communities with lower functional redundancy and resilience, while also imposing novel selective pressures on plants, potentially driving rapid eco-evolutionary changes in key traits such as seed size. To investigate these processes, we will use camera traps and biological samples (eDNA, plant material, fruit measurements) to characterize changes in phenotypic traits (seed size, foraging behavior, and seed dispersal effectiveness) and community assembly (interspecific competition in primates and plant-frugivore network structure) along a hunting-driven defaunation gradient in a Neotropical rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon. By combining direct observations with molecular detection of cryptic species, this multi-method approach will provide a robust link between vertebrate community changes, plant trait dynamics, and interaction network reorganization. NEOSHORTFALLS will enhance our understanding of the ecological processes that sustain biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in one of the planets largest, most pristine, yet threatened regions. The results will be critical for developing management strategies for at-risk Neotropical communities and for mitigating biodiversity loss and declines in forest regeneration through methods that accurately predict population vulnerability.

Funding/ Partners

• Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC)

• Norwegian University of Life Sciences

• Instituto de Pesquisas Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro (JBRJ)

• University of Cumbria (UoC)

• Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA)

• Universidade Federal do Amazonas (UFAM)

• Instituto Juruá (IJ)

• University of East Anglia (UEA)

• Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA)

Leadership

• Ana Benítez-Lopez (Coordinator)

• Lisieux Franco Fuzessy (Vice-Coordinator)

Collaborators

• Laura Paltrinieri

• Iván Ortiz Solano

• Torbjørn Haugaasen

• Carine Emer

• Joseph Hawes

• Caroline C. Vasconcelos

• Hugo C. M. Costa

• Carlos Augusto Peres

• Jonathan Stuart Ready