Understanding deforestation in montane and lowland forests of the Colombian Andes

Armenteras, Dolors; Rodríguez, Nelly; Retana, Javier; Morales, Mónica

doi:10.1007/s10113-010-0200-y

Cited by 149 publications

(142 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Such changes in land cover and land use have been documented in a peasant reserve close to Picachos' southern boundary, Losada-Guayabero, which includes more than 2000 families with agricultural and pastoral livelihoods [34,35]. The changes in dominant land use coincides with the concentration of browning trends and small-scale disturbances in the southeastern foothills of Picachos as detected by both MAIAC and Landsat and corroborated in previous studies [4,12,34,70] (Figure 9). Conversely, the concentration of MAIAC-based greening trends and absence of Landsat-based disturbance near large rivers in eastern Picachos, such as Rio Guayabero, suggests that these rivers act as barriers to forest resource extraction.…”

Section: Possible Drivers Of Vegetation Trends and Disturbancessupporting

confidence: 86%

Leveraging Multi-Sensor Time Series Datasets to Map Short- and Long-Term Tropical Forest Disturbances in the Colombian Andes

2017

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Abstract:The spatial distribution of disturbances in Andean tropical forests and protected areas has commonly been calculated using bi or tri-temporal analysis because of persistent cloud cover and complex topography. Long-term trends of vegetative decline (browning) or improvement (greening) have thus not been evaluated despite their importance for assessing conservation strategy implementation in regions where field-based monitoring by environmental authorities is limited. Using Colombia's Cordillera de los Picachos National Natural Park as a case study, we provide a temporally rigorous assessment of regional vegetation change from 2001-2015 with two remote sensing-based approaches using the Breaks For Additive Season and Trend (BFAST) algorithm. First, we measured long-term vegetation trends using a Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-based Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) time series, and, second, we mapped short-term disturbances using all available Landsat images. MAIAC-derived trends indicate a net greening in 6% of the park, but in the surrounding 10 km area outside of the park, a net browning trend prevails at 2.5%. We also identified a 12,500 ha area within Picachos (4% of the park's total area) that has shown at least 13 years of consecutive browning, a result that was corroborated with our Landsat-based approach that recorded a 12,642 ha (±1440 ha) area of disturbed forest within the park. Landsat vegetation disturbance results had user's and producer's accuracies of 0.95 ± 0.02 and 0.83 ± 0.18, respectively, and 75% of Landsat-detected dates of disturbance events were accurate within ±6 months. This study provides new insights into the contribution of short-term disturbance to long-term trends of vegetation change, and offers an unprecedented perspective on the distribution of small-scale disturbances over a 15-year period in one of the most inaccessible national parks in the Andes.

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Section: Possible Drivers Of Vegetation Trends and Disturbancessupporting

confidence: 86%

Leveraging Multi-Sensor Time Series Datasets to Map Short- and Long-Term Tropical Forest Disturbances in the Colombian Andes

2017

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“…In the Colombian Andes, this conversion has been carried out since pre-Hispanic times [75], and 62% of the original cover has already been transformed [38]. Predictions have also drawn attention to the dramatic losses of Andean forest by pasture [76].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reserves were selected on the basis of four criteria: (1) forest reserves with high frequency and persistence of clouds due to the lack of a cloud forest map for the study area, and to avoid any bias in the selection, we randomly preselected 12 candidate patches based on the "cloud forest potential cover model" of Mulligan and Burke [7]; (2) forest fragments with discrete edges, following Ewers and Didham [16] since discrete edges reduce the effect of ecotone conditions [16] and facilitated the perimeter digitizing process; (3) presence of two types of neighboring vegetation cover surrounding forest patches: regeneration (R), consisting of vegetation in early succession stage of low-density trees above 3 m, and pastures (P), characterized by grass-dominated areas, less than 50 cm in height (mainly species of Cyperaceae, Poacea and Fabaceae). We aimed to assess the effect of pastureland and abandoned zones, as these are one of the dominant cover types in the Colombian Andean region [37,38]; finally, (4) access permission, owing to their condition of reserves belonging to rural communities. We targeted these reserves because private reserves have been shown to play an important role in orchid conservation (e.g., [39]).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Edge Influence on Diversity of Orchids in Andean Cloud Forests

Sánchez

Armenteras

Retana

2016

Forests

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Cloud forests harbor high levels of orchid diversity. However, due to the high fragmentation of these forests in the Andes, combined with the pressure for new agricultural land, orchid diversity is highly threatened. Despite this worrying scenario, few studies have assessed the effects of habitat loss specifically on orchid assemblages in the Andes. The aim of this study was to analyze the edge effect on orchids in cloud forest fragments of varying size. We measured forest structure, neighboring land cover and edge effect on orchid abundance, species richness and beta-diversity, by sampling assemblages along edge-to-interior transects in six different sized Andean (southwest Colombia) forest remnants. We recorded 11,127 stem-individuals of orchids in 141 species. Within the forest, edges sustained equal or more species than interior plots. Our results revealed neither patch metrics nor forest structure showed any significant association to orchid diversity at any scale. Nonetheless, from our observations in composition, the type of neighboring cover, particularly pastures, negatively influences interior species (richness and composition) in larger reserves. This might be due to the fact that some species found in interior plots tend to be confined, with sporadic appearances in regeneration forest and are very scarce or absent in pastures. Species richness differed significantly between matrix types. Our results suggest that (1) orchid diversity shows spatial variability in response to disturbances, but the response is independent from forest structure, patch size and patch geometry; (2) orchid communities are negatively affected by covers, and this pattern is reflected in reduced richness and high species turnover; (3) orchid richness edge effect across a pasture-interior gradient. Two forest management implications can be discerned from our results: (1) management strategies aiming to reduce edge effects may focus on improvement regeneration conditions around pasture lands; and (2) local scale management and conservation activities of natural forests in cloud forests will favor small reserves that harbor high levels of richness.

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“…However, the Andes have suffered some of the highest deforestation rates because of anthropogenic pressures such as the conversion of forest to farmland (Mittermeier et al 2005, Suárez et al 2011. In Colombia, the deforestation rate in the Andes is high, with 0.67% of the native forest disappearing every year as a result, primarily, of the expansion of http://ciencias.bogota.unal.edu.co/icn/publicaciones/ 272 agriculture and pasture frontiers (Armenteras et al 2011, Rodríguez et al 2013. The declaration of protected areas in regions suffering rapid deforestation is important for the conservation of native flora, and has been successful in preserving natural ecosystems in the northern Andes where biological diversity is greatest (Joppa et al 2008, Armenteras et al 2009, Rodríguez et al 2013.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drymonia Squamosa (Gesneriaceae), a New Species From Las Orquídeas National Natural Park (Antioquia, Colombia)

Clavijo¹,

Clark²

2015

Caldasia

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A new species of Drymonia (Gesneriaceae) from the Cordillera Occidental of the Colombian Andes in the department of Antioquia is described and illustrated. The new species, Drymonia squamosa, is distinguished by dense clusters of scales on the petioles, glabrate leaf blades with minute punctations on the lower surface, calyx appearing swollen at base with lanceolate lobes, corolla villous to lanate, and style with glandular trichomes. Additionally, D. squamosa is categorized as vulnerable (VU) based on the IUCN criteria.

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Understanding deforestation in montane and lowland forests of the Colombian Andes

Cited by 149 publications

References 38 publications

Leveraging Multi-Sensor Time Series Datasets to Map Short- and Long-Term Tropical Forest Disturbances in the Colombian Andes

Leveraging Multi-Sensor Time Series Datasets to Map Short- and Long-Term Tropical Forest Disturbances in the Colombian Andes

Edge Influence on Diversity of Orchids in Andean Cloud Forests

Drymonia Squamosa (Gesneriaceae), a New Species From Las Orquídeas National Natural Park (Antioquia, Colombia)

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