Soybean Production and Conversion of Tropical Forest in the Brazilian Amazon: The Case of Vilhena, Rondônia

Brown, John C.; Koeppe, Matthew; Coles, Benjamin; Price, Kevin P.

doi:10.1579/0044-7447-34.6.462

Cited by 88 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Substantial cropland expansion into pasture is found only in Latin America where trends of soy and sugarcane replacing pasture are well documented (21,23,40). However, the total net increases in cropland are larger than the reduction in pasture areas (40), showing that cropland unquestionably expanded into natural ecosystems.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Agricultural expansion is a major driver of tropical deforestation (17)(18)(19)(20), but not all expansion results in the loss of intact forests: shrublands, pasture, logged or regrowing forests, degraded land, and shifting cultivation fields are all sources for new permanent agriculture (21)(22)(23). It is critical to understand the geographic and temporal differences in expansion pathways to quantify the impacts on all ecosystems services, including carbon storage, wildlife habitat, and watershed benefits.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, debate continues to mount about the landscape origins of global agricultural commodities such as oil palm, sugarcane, and soybeans. Agroindustrialists and some scientists suggest that expansion is occurring largely on degraded or previously cleared land (23)(24)(25), but others posit that agriculture is expanding into rainforests (22,(26)(27)(28). This debate became even more pressing with the surge in the demand for biofuel, because recent studies have argued that expansion of biofuel crops into rainforests may substantially increase rather than decrease net carbon emissions (29)(30)(31).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Morton et al (21) tracked the origins of expanding soybean fields in Brazil using a combination of remote sensing and field verification in the state of Mato Grosso along the Amazon basin's agricultural frontier. Similarly, Brown et al (23) examined soy expansion in a portion of Rondônia, Brazil. Brink and Eva (32) used a sample of Landsat imagery to quantify land-cover dynamics across sub-Saharan Africa between 1975 and 2000.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Tropical forests were the primary sources of new agricultural land in the 1980s and 1990s

Gibbs

Ruesch

Achard

et al. 2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

1,534

930

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Global demand for agricultural products such as food, feed, and fuel is now a major driver of cropland and pasture expansion across much of the developing world. Whether these new agricultural lands replace forests, degraded forests, or grasslands greatly influences the environmental consequences of expansion. Although the general pattern is known, there still is no definitive quantification of these land-cover changes. Here we analyze the rich, pan-tropical database of classified Landsat scenes created by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations to examine pathways of agricultural expansion across the major tropical forest regions in the 1980s and 1990s and use this information to highlight the future land conversions that probably will be needed to meet mounting demand for agricultural products. Across the tropics, we find that between 1980 and 2000 more than 55% of new agricultural land came at the expense of intact forests, and another 28% came from disturbed forests. This study underscores the potential consequences of unabated agricultural expansion for forest conservation and carbon emissions.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Tropical forests were the primary sources of new agricultural land in the 1980s and 1990s

Gibbs

Ruesch

Achard

et al. 2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

1,534

930

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“…These pastures could be of low nitrifying (24) and low N 2 O emitting systems. If these grasslands were converted to soybean and maize, crops that lack BNI capacity (24,46), there could be major implications for N 2 O emissions. Approximately 11 Mha of pastoral land in the Cerrados region of Brazil has already been converted to soybean and maize (37,47), and an additional 35-40 Mha could suffer such conversion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for biological nitrification inhibition inBrachiariapastures

Subbarao

Nakahara²,

Hurtado³

et al. 2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

437

420

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Nitrification, a key process in the global nitrogen cycle that generates nitrate through microbial activity, may enhance losses of fertilizer nitrogen by leaching and denitrification. Certain plants can suppress soil-nitrification by releasing inhibitors from roots, a phenomenon termed biological nitrification inhibition (BNI). Here, we report the discovery of an effective nitrification inhibitor in the root-exudates of the tropical forage grass Brachiaria humidicola (Rendle) Schweick. Named ''brachialactone,'' this inhibitor is a recently discovered cyclic diterpene with a unique 5-8-5-membered ring system and a ␥-lactone ring. It contributed 60 -90% of the inhibitory activity released from the roots of this tropical grass. Unlike nitrapyrin (a synthetic nitrification inhibitor), which affects only the ammonia monooxygenase (AMO) pathway, brachialactone appears to block both AMO and hydroxylamine oxidoreductase enzymatic pathways in Nitrosomonas. global warming ͉ nitrogen pollution ͉ nitrous oxide emissions ͉ root exudation ͉ climate change M ost modern agricultural systems are based on large inputs of inorganic nitrogen (N), with ammonium (NH 4 ϩ ) being the primary N source (1, 2). Also, current crop management practices result in the development of highly nitrifying soil environments (3, 4). Nitrification results in the transformation of the relatively immobile NH 4 ϩ to highly mobile nitrate (NO 3 Ϫ ), making inorganic N susceptible to losses through leaching of NO 3 Ϫ and/or gaseous N emissions, potentially initiating a cascade of environmental and health problems (1, 2, 5, 6). Nitrous oxide (N 2 O) is one of the three major biogenic greenhouse gases contributing to global warming, produced primarily from denitrification processes in agricultural systems (5, 7). Also, assimilation of NO 3 Ϫ by plants can result in further N 2 O emissions directly from plant canopies (8). The low agronomic N-use efficiency (NUE) found in many agricultural systems is largely the result of N losses associated with nitrification (i.e., N losses from NO 3 Ϫ leaching and denitrification) (9-11). Most plants have the ability to assimilate both NH 4 ϩ and NO 3 Ϫ (12); therefore, nitrification does not need to be a dominant process in the N cycle for efficient N use.Nitrification is low in some forest and grassland soils (13-17). Since the early 1960s, some tropical grasses have been suspected of having the capacity to inhibit nitrification (18-21). However, this concept remained controversial due to the lack of direct evidence showing such inhibitory effects or the identification of specific inhibitors (22).We adopted a very sensitive bioassay using a recombinant luminescent Nitrosomonas europaea to detect biological nitrification inhibition (BNI) in plant-soil systems with the inhibitory activity of roots expressed in allylthiourea units (ATU) (23). Using this methodology, we were able to show that certain plants release nitrification inhibitors from their roots (23-26). Such BNI capacity appears to be relatively widespread among...

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