The fate of Amazonian forest fragments: A 32-year investigation

Laurance, William F.; Camargo, José Luís; Luizão, Regina C. C.; Laurance, Susan G.; Pimm, Stuart L.; Bruna, Emilio M.; Stouffer, Philip C.; Williamson, G. Bruce; Benítez‐Malvido, Julieta; Vasconcelos, Heraldo L.; Houtan, Kyle S. Van; Zartman, Charles E.; Boyle, Sarah A.; Didham, Raphaël K.; Andrade, Ana; Lovejoy, Thomas Ε.

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2010.09.021

Cited by 797 publications

(830 citation statements)

References 130 publications

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“…Although earlier studies have found that smallholders tend to deforest a larger proportion of their properties (16,27), we found that smallholder-dominated CTs have proportionately more forest cover than CTs dominated by larger properties, and they also have forests that tend to be both less fragmented (relatively fewer edges and more core forest) and less degraded. This suggests that for similar-sized areas, such forests are arguably in better ecological condition (28,29) and are less prone to fire and other edge-related degradation processes (30,31).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Actor-specific contributions to the deforestation slowdown in the Brazilian Amazon

Godar

Gardner

Tizado

et al. 2014

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

220

137

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Significance The Brazilian Amazon is at a critical juncture after the recent stabilization of deforestation rates. Identifying opportunities for continued deforestation reductions requires an understanding of the contribution of different actors to overall deforestation. We provide the first such assessment, to our knowledge, that reports on two headline findings. First, between 2004 and 2011, areas dominated by properties larger than 500 ha accounted for 48% of the deforestation compared with only 12% for smallholders (<100 ha). Second, the deforestation share attributed to the largest properties (≥2,500 ha) declined by 63% from a peak in 2005, whereas that of smallholders increased by 69%. Further reductions in deforestation are likely to require a shift toward more incentive-based policies that are tailored toward different actors.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Actor-specific contributions to the deforestation slowdown in the Brazilian Amazon

Godar

Gardner

Tizado

et al. 2014

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

220

137

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Undisturbed forests in these landscapes typically have lower mean canopy openness and higher basal area (area covered by trees and woody palms 10 cm) than forests subject to disturbance events [53]. Thus, we also used mean canopy openness and basal area to provide a continuous assessment of land-use intensity.…”

Section: (C) Environmental Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using avian functional traits to assess the impact of land-cover change on ecosystem processes linked to resilience in tropical forests

et al. 2016

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Vertebrates perform key roles in ecosystem processes via trophic interactions with plants and insects, but the response of these interactions to environmental change is difficult to quantify in complex systems, such as tropical forests. Here, we use the functional trait structure of Amazonian forest bird assemblages to explore the impacts of land-cover change on two ecosystem processes: seed dispersal and insect predation. We show that trait structure in assemblages of frugivorous and insectivorous birds remained stable after primary forests were subjected to logging and fire events, but that further intensification of human land use substantially reduced the functional diversity and dispersion of traits, and resulted in communities that occupied a different region of trait space. These effects were only partially reversed in regenerating secondary forests. Our findings suggest that local extinctions caused by the loss and degradation of tropical forest are non-random with respect to functional traits, thus disrupting the network of trophic interactions regulating seed dispersal by forest birds and herbivory by insects, with important implications for the structure and resilience of human-modified tropical forests. Furthermore, our results illustrate how quantitative functional traits for specific guilds can provide a range of metrics for estimating the contribution of biodiversity to ecosystem processes, and the response of such processes to land-cover change

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“…In subsequent years, especially in drought years, a significant proportion of the forest biomass and not just the understory may also burn Alencar, Solórzano, and Nepstad 2004;Alencar, Nepstad, and Diaz 2006;Aragão and Shimabukuro 2010;Alencar et al 2011). In addition to emissions estimation, information on the timing, location and incidence of the different fire types are important for policy-makers and regulatory bodies to monitor and regulate the use of fire GOFC-GOLD 2010) and to provide insights into post-disturbance land management practices and vegetation dynamics that can be difficult to infer in the region (Ramankutty et al 2007;Laurance et al 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-year MODIS active fire type classification over the Brazilian Tropical Moist Forest Biome

Roy

Kumar

2016

International Journal of Digital Earth

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The Brazilian Tropical Moist Forest Biome (BTMFB) spans almost 4 million km 2 and is subject to extensive annual fires that have been categorized into deforestation, maintenance, and forest fire types. Information on fire types is important as they have different atmospheric emissions and ecological impacts. A supervised classification methodology is presented to classify the fire type of MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) active fire detections using training data defined by consideration of Brazilian government forest monitoring program annual land cover maps, and using predictor variables concerned with fuel flammability, fuel load, fire behavior, fire seasonality, fire annual frequency, proximity to surface transportation, and local temperature. The fire seasonality, local temperature, and fuel flammability were the most influential on the classification. Classified fire type results for all 1.6 million MODIS Terra and Aqua BTMFB active fire detections over eight years (2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010) are presented with an overall fire type classification accuracy of 90.9% (kappa 0.824). The fire type user's and producer's classification accuracies were respectively 92.4% and 94.4% (maintenance fires), 88.4% and 87.5% (forest fires), and, 88.7% and 75.0% (deforestation fires). The spatial and temporal distribution of the classified fire types are presented and are similar to patterns reported in the available recent literature. ARTICLE HISTORY

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The fate of Amazonian forest fragments: A 32-year investigation

Cited by 797 publications

References 130 publications

Actor-specific contributions to the deforestation slowdown in the Brazilian Amazon

Actor-specific contributions to the deforestation slowdown in the Brazilian Amazon

Using avian functional traits to assess the impact of land-cover change on ecosystem processes linked to resilience in tropical forests

Multi-year MODIS active fire type classification over the Brazilian Tropical Moist Forest Biome

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