Recovery of logged forest fragments in a human-modified tropical landscape during the 2015-16 El Niño

Nunes, Matheus Henrique; Jucker, Tommaso; Riutta, Terhi; Svátek, Martin; Kvasnica, Jakub; Rejžek, Martin; Matula, Radim; Majalap, Noreen; Ewers, Robert M.; Swinfield, Tom; Valbuena, Rubén; Vaughn, Nicholas R.; Asner, Gregory P.; Coomes, David A.

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-20811-y

Cited by 46 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 93 publications

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“…For example, carbon sequestration within young secondary forest is $60% higher in the western versus eastern Amazon 99 . Meanwhile, following the 2015-16 El Nin ˜o drought in heavily logged landscapes of Malaysian Borneo, forest regrowth was slower on hilltops and close to oil palm plantations, where exposure and edge effects are strongest 100 , while positive effects of liana-cutting on regeneration were reversed due to intense sunlight in the understorey 101 . Understanding such variation offers opportunities for climate-smart restoration that avoids climate-mediated setbacks.…”

Section: Innovationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Upscaling tropical restoration to deliver environmental benefits and socially equitable outcomes

Edwards

Cerullo

Chomba³

et al. 2021

Current Biology

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The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration offers immense potential to return hundreds of millions of hectares of degraded tropical landscapes to functioning ecosystems. Well-designed restoration can tackle multiple Sustainable Development Goals, driving synergistic benefits for biodiversity, ecosystem services, agricultural and timber production, and local livelihoods at large spatial scales. To deliver on this potential, restoration efforts must recognise and reduce trade-offs among objectives, and minimize competition with food production and conservation of native ecosystems. Restoration initiatives also need to confront core environmental challenges of climate change and inappropriate planting in savanna biomes, be robustly funded over the long term, and address issues of poor governance, inadequate land tenure, and sociocultural disparities in benefits and costs. Tackling these issues using the landscape approach is vital to realising the potential for restoration to break the cycle of land degradation and poverty, and deliver on its core environmental and social promises. ll

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Section: Innovationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Upscaling tropical restoration to deliver environmental benefits and socially equitable outcomes

Edwards

Cerullo

Chomba³

et al. 2021

Current Biology

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“…Dry season temperatures in forest edges were -5 °C higher than in the interior of the fragment, but changes in soil moisture were small. These higher temperatures may lead to an increase in vapour pressure deficit (VPD), inducing stomatal closure and leaf loss 23,69,78,79 , as shedding leaves may help to avoid the desiccating effects of water and heat stress 80 . On the other hand, plant area in the understory of forest edges was unaffected by higher temperatures or changes in upper canopy leaf area.…”

Section: Forest Fragmentation Disrupts Seasonal Patterns Of Plant Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We included exp (−x) as an asymptotic component that represents the saturation of PAI with distance from edge, denoted by x in the model, and transect as a random variable, allowing us to include any idiosyncratic differences between transects. This approach has been used to investigate edge effects on forest structure and dynamics 23,54 . A hockey-stick model consisting of two linear segments was also implemented with the R package hockeystick.…”

Section: Determining Edge Effects and Number Of Forest Stratamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The effects of climatic variations on leaf phenology can also be amplified by forest fragmentation 23 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Forest edges contain a large abundance of early successional species with rapid acquisition of resources that maximise new leaf production and growth 24,25 , but may be more vulnerable to droughts 26 . Forest fragmentation can increase the evaporative demand due to higher temperatures and wind exposure, and soil moisture can be lower at fragment edges 27 , which may cause leaves to drop and lead to higher branch turnover 12,23 . However, ground observations of litterfall in Amazonian forests have shown only a mild seasonality near edges 28 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fragmentation disrupts the seasonality of Amazonian evergreen forests

Nunes¹,

Camargo²,

Vincent³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Predictions of the magnitude and timing of leaf phenology in Amazonian forests remain highly controversial, which limits our understanding of future ecosystem function with a changing environment. Here, we use biweekly terrestrial LiDAR surveys spanning wet and dry seasons in Central Amazonia to show that plant phenology of old-growth forests varies strongly across strata but that this seasonality is sensitive to disturbances arising from forest fragmentation. In combination with continuous microclimate measurements, we found that when maximum daily temperatures reached 35 °C in the latter part of the dry season, the upper canopy of large trees in undisturbed forests shed their leaves and branches. By contrast, the understory greens-up with increased light availability driven by the upper canopy loss alongside more sunlight radiation, even during periods of drier soil and atmospheric conditions. However, persistently high temperatures on forest edges exacerbated the upper canopy losses of large trees throughout the dry season, and the understory seasonality in these light-rich environments was disrupted as a result of the altered canopy structure. These findings demonstrate the plant-climate interactions controlling the seasonality of wet Amazonian forests and show that forest fragmentation will aggravate forest loss under a hotter and drier future scenario.

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Agricultural expansion and forest retreat in Mainland Southeast Asia since the late 1980s

Xiao,

Li,

Feng

2023

Land Degrad Dev

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Agrarian expansion and intensification in the tropical agricultural‐forest frontiers (TAFF) are continuously encroaching on forests, yet the magnitudes and processes of agricultural‐forest advances and retreats remain lacking investigation systematically and quantitatively. With over three‐decade (1987–2018) of land‐cover products, here, we revealed the spatiotemporal dynamic processes of agricultural advance and forest retreat and then quantified forest loss (FL) due to cropland and plantation expansion (PE) in Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA). First, the agricultural expansion and FL peaked in the late 1990s to early 2000s and decelerated afterward in MSEA. Meanwhile, the continuous decline in deforestation rates was accompanied by a decline in the patches of forest fragments, while cropland and plantations first decreased and then increased. Second, 85% of cropland expansion (CE) occurred in forest frontiers of Myanmar (37%) and Thailand (32%) in particular, compared with 72% of PE in plantation‐forest frontiers, for example, 24% in Thailand and 22% in Cambodia. Third, 51% and 37% of the forests that declined were converted into cropland and plantations, respectively, with obvious national variations. In the least developed countries, such as Myanmar and Cambodia, CE dominated (65%), while the proportion of PE in Thailand and Vietnam was up to 56%. Finally, over 10% of the advances and retreats (re‐)occurred in various protected areas, with the expansion ratio of cropland and plantations nearly 1:2, particularly the Cambodia‐Thailand border. We thus appeal for more effective efforts from governments, the scientific community, and international initiatives (e.g., the UN‐REDD and Sustainable Development Goals) to further study and solve the issues of forest retreat and agricultural advance across the entire TAFF. Our new findings and insights about agricultural‐forest advances and retreats in their frontiers can enrich existing pan‐regional research of forest conversion or FL and agricultural expansion and provide an encouraging basis for action to reduce environmental degradation in tropical forests, including protected areas.

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Recovery of logged forest fragments in a human-modified tropical landscape during the 2015-16 El Niño

Cited by 46 publications

References 93 publications

Upscaling tropical restoration to deliver environmental benefits and socially equitable outcomes

Upscaling tropical restoration to deliver environmental benefits and socially equitable outcomes

Fragmentation disrupts the seasonality of Amazonian evergreen forests

Agricultural expansion and forest retreat in Mainland Southeast Asia since the late 1980s

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