2. The taxa-abundances table was derived from a phyto-ecological
plot network gathering 75,000 inventoried trees, partly included
in the Amazon Tree Diversity Network (Molino et al., 2009). As it
proved to be one of the most intensive botanical network in the
region and spread over almost the whole territory (ter Steege
et al., 2013), we assumed this abundance table is representative
of our regional meta-community. However, as 493 very rare species
of the checklist had no record (N = 0, i.e., species known
from French Guiana but not recorded in the phyto-ecological
plots), we added them a residual weight (w < 1).