ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2016
The underestimated biodiversity of tropical grassy biomes.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Encroachment diminishes herbaceous plant diversity in grassy ecosystems worldwide.Global change biology · 2022Pooled it
- Bridging genetic knowledge gaps in a biodiversity hotspot through conservation training.Bioscience · 2026Review
- Unveiling Emerging Trends and Gaps in Scientific Research on Vertebrate Biodiversity in Tropical Savannahs.Ecology and evolution · 2026Review
- Article
- Seven ways to prevent biomism.Ambio · 2025Article
- Prairie management practices influence biodiversity, productivity and surface-atmosphere feedbacks.The New phytologist · 2025Article
- GenDivRange: A global dataset of geo-referenced population genetic diversity across species ranges.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Strong Host Modulation of Rhizosphere-to-Endosphere Microbial Colonisation in Natural Populations of the Pan-Palaeotropical Keystone Grass Species,Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Mapping Temperate Savanna in Northeastern China Through Integrating UAV and Satellite Imagery.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Insect-flower interactions, ecosystem functions, and restoration ecology in the northern Sahel: current knowledge and perspectives.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Faunal Responses to Habitat Disturbance: Do the Principles Explaining Responses of Ant Communities Also Apply to Terrestrial Reptiles?Ecology and evolution · 2025Review
- Large-scale pyrodiversity is not needed to beget ant diversity in an Australian tropical savanna.Oecologia · 2025Article
- Article
- WASP: the World Archives of Species Perception.Database : the journal of biological databases and curation · 2023Article
- How climate, topography, soils, herbivores, and fire control forest-grassland coexistence in the Eurasian forest-steppe.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2022Article
- Moth Diversity Increases along a Continent-Wide Gradient of Environmental Productivity in South African Savannahs.Insects · 2022Article
- A novel in situ passive heating method for evaluating whole-tree responses to daytime warming in remote environments.Plant methods · 2022Article
- Tropical forests are home to over half of the world's vertebrate species.Frontiers in ecology and the environment · 2022Article
- The Rhizobial Microbiome from the Tropical Savannah Zones in Northern Côte d'Ivoire.Microorganisms · 2021Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
For decades, there has been enormous scientific interest in tropical savannahs and grasslands, fuelled by the recognition that they are a dynamic and potentially unstable biome, requiring periodic disturbance for their maintenance. However, that scientific interest has not translated into widespread appreciation of, and concern about threats to, their biodiversity. In terms of biodiversity, grassy biomes are considered poor cousins of the other dominant biome of the tropics-forests. Simple notions of grassy biomes being species-poor cannot be supported; for some key taxa, such as vascular plants, this may be valid, but for others it is not. Here, we use an analysis of existing data to demonstrate that high-rainfall tropical grassy biomes (TGBs) have vertebrate species richness comparable with that of forests, despite having lower plant diversity. The Neotropics stand out in terms of both overall vertebrate species richness and number of range-restricted vertebrate species in TGBs. Given high rates of land-cover conversion in Neotropical grassy biomes, they should be a high priority for conservation and greater inclusion in protected areas. Fire needs to be actively maintained in these systems, and in many cases re-introduced after decades of inappropriate fire exclusion. The relative intactness of TGBs in Africa and Australia make them the least vulnerable to biodiversity loss in the immediate future. We argue that, like forests, TGBs should be recognized as a critical-but increasingly threatened-store of global biodiversity.This article is part of the themed issue 'Tropical grassy biomes: linking ecology, human use and conservation'.
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Registered trials
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