Tropical forest fragmentation and isolation: Is community decay a random process?

Luther, David; Cooper, W. Justin; Wolfe, Jared D.; Bierregaard, Richard O.; Gonzalez, Andrew; Lovejoy, Thomas Ε.

doi:10.1016/j.gecco.2020.e01168

Cited by 18 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Changing land use in the Brazilian Amazon threatens the extinction of a significant number of species and consequent loss of environmental functions and services of the largest tropical forest on the planet [35,37,[62][63][64]. Despite repeated warnings and concerns of conservationists and the scientific community, deforestation continues at an accelerated rate [63,65].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, invasive, or ruderal, species are common and cause the impoverishment of the seed bank [70][71][72][73][74]. Thus, understanding the effects of different types of land use on the seed bank is fundamentally essential to understand the evolution of the landscape, identify obstacles to the restoration of the forest, and, consequently, ensure the regeneration of forest environments and maintenance of environmental services [41,64,65,69,70,74].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ecology of the Seed Bank in the Amazon Rainforest

Bordon¹,

Filho²,

Bentos³

2021

Ecosystem and Biodiversity of Amazonia

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The seed bank is directly related to forest resilience because it contributes to the greatest number of regenerants after the occurrence of disturbances. Changes in seed density, floristic composition, and life forms completely alter the successional trajectory of forest environments. These changes are directly related to land use. For example, suppression of the seed bank can occur in pastures, that experience frequent fires with increase of density of seeds and predominance of herbs are typical of highly degraded areas, such as Poaceae, Rubiaceae, Asteraceae, and Cyperaceae. Melastomataceae seedlings are an important component of the seed bank in the Amazon rainforest. On the other hand, Urticaceae has greater representation in forests that exhibit low-impact land use. Any change in seed bank functionality is bound to compromise the diversity, regeneration potential and overall maintenance of tropical forests. Therefore, it is necessary to expand studies that investigate seed banks in the Amazon rainforest. It is as important to prioritize sampling methods and pursue standardization of data presentation, as well as improve the identification of species that occur in the seed bank.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecology of the Seed Bank in the Amazon Rainforest

Bordon¹,

Filho²,

Bentos³

2021

Ecosystem and Biodiversity of Amazonia

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“…In fact, a multitude of studies has observed that species with similar niches, as well as more closely related species, are less likely to coexist in degraded habitats such as forest fragments (e.g. [25,72]). Similar to our findings, the loss of species in degraded tropical forests has led to a decrease in the functional diversity of birds in other Neotropical forests [51,64,67,73,74].…”

Section: (C) Functional Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term changes in avian biomass and functional diversity within disturbed and undisturbed Amazonian rainforest

et al. 2022

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Recent long-term studies in protected areas have revealed the loss of biodiversity, yet the ramifications for ecosystem health and resilience remain unknown. Here, we investigate how the loss of understory birds, in the lowest stratum of the forest, affects avian biomass and functional diversity in the Amazon rainforest. Across approximately 30 years in the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, we used a historical baseline of avian communities to contrast the avian communities in today's primary forest with those in modern disturbed habitat. We found that in primary rainforest, the reduced abundance of insectivorous species led to reduced functional diversity, but no reduction of biomass, indicating that species with similar functional traits are less likely to coexist in modern primary forests. Because today's forests contain fewer functionally redundant species—those with similar traits—we argue that avian communities in modern primary Amazonian rainforests are less resilient, which may ultimately disrupt the ecosystem in dynamic and unforeseen ways.

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“…Distribution patterns in nature are known to change over time (Soininen et al 2018) making essential studies that analyze the temporal dynamics of animal community characteristics, such as nestedness (Wilby and Shachak 2000;Klaassen and Nolet 2008;Tunberg and Krång 2008). Luther et al (2020) asserted that repeated assessments are crucial for investigating how habitat fragmentation affects nestedness dynamics both in the short and in the long-term. In fact, the response of animal communities to environmental changes occurring both at local (e.g., changes in habitat quality) and landscape (e.g., habitat loss and fragmentation) scale can be often noticeable over long periods due to system inertia, which imperil the observation of short-time responses (Lindenmayer and Fischer 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term dynamic of nestedness in bird assemblages inhabiting fragmented landscapes

et al. 2022

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Context Nestedness is a common pattern of species assemblages in fragmented landscapes. The spatial pattern and ecological drivers of nested communities have been widely explored, but few studies investigated their long-term variability. Objectives To investigate the variability of nestedness and species-specific fragment occupancy of forest birds in a fragmented landscape affected by environmental changes over 16 years. Methods Data were obtained from the Monitoring Program of Breeding Birds in Lombardy (northern Italy). For two study periods (1997–2001, 2013–2017), we tested for overall nestedness and for sites and species nestedness independently using the NODF metric. We tested for nestedness drivers (variable selection on multiple linear regression models) and evaluated the effect of species ecological traits on fragment occupancy changes (variable selection on multiple linear regression model). Results The community showed a significant nestedness driven by both selective extinction and selective colonization in both study periods. Sites nestedness was significant in the second study period only. Over 16 years the effect of distance from source areas was completely lost and only local isolation conditions drove selective colonization in the second study period. Between the two study periods, we discovered a general occupancy decrease of interior species and a significant occupancy increase of generalist species characterized by large size and large minimum area requirement. Conclusions Nestedness drivers of the investigated community significantly varied over time probably because of both environmental and demographic changes. Long-term studies are crucial to explore spatial pattern changes and to address management strategies for species conservation in fragmented landscapes.

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Tropical forest fragmentation and isolation: Is community decay a random process?

Cited by 18 publications

References 61 publications

Ecology of the Seed Bank in the Amazon Rainforest

Ecology of the Seed Bank in the Amazon Rainforest

Long-term changes in avian biomass and functional diversity within disturbed and undisturbed Amazonian rainforest

Long-term dynamic of nestedness in bird assemblages inhabiting fragmented landscapes

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