TY - JOUR
T1 - Diverse anthropogenic disturbances shift Amazon forests along a structural spectrum
AU - Smith, Marielle N.
AU - Stark, Scott C.
AU - Taylor, Tyeen C.
AU - Schietti, Juliana
AU - de Almeida, Danilo Roberti Alves
AU - Aragón, Susan
AU - Torralvo, Kelly
AU - Lima, Albertina P.
AU - de Oliveira, Gabriel
AU - de Assis, Rafael Leandro
AU - Leitold, Veronika
AU - Pontes-Lopes, Aline
AU - Scoles, Ricardo
AU - de Sousa Vieira, Luciana Cristina
AU - Resende, Angelica Faria
AU - Coppola, Alysha I.
AU - Brandão, Diego Oliveira
AU - de Athaydes Silva Junior, João
AU - Lobato, Laura F.
AU - Freitas, Wagner
AU - Almeida, Daniel
AU - Souza, Mendell S.
AU - Minor, David M.
AU - Villegas, Juan Camilo
AU - Law, Darin J.
AU - Gonçalves, Nathan
AU - da Rocha, Daniel Gomes
AU - Guedes, Marcelino Carneiro
AU - Tonini, Hélio
AU - da Silva, Kátia Emídio
AU - van Haren, Joost
AU - Rosa, Diogo Martins
AU - do Valle, Dalton Freitas
AU - Cordeiro, Carlos Leandro
AU - de Lima, Nicolas Zaslavsky
AU - Shao, Gang
AU - Menor, Imma Oliveras
AU - Conti, Georgina
AU - Florentino, Ana Paula
AU - Montti, Lía
AU - Aragão, Luiz E.O.C.
AU - McMahon, Sean M.
AU - Parker, Geoffrey G.
AU - Breshears, David D.
AU - Da Costa, Antonio Carlos Lola
AU - Magnusson, William E.
AU - Mesquita, Rita
AU - Camargo, José Luís C.
AU - de Oliveira, Raimundo C.
AU - de Camargo, Plinio B.
AU - Saleska, Scott R.
AU - Nelson, Bruce Walker
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Ecological Society of America.
PY - 2023/2
Y1 - 2023/2
N2 - Amazon forests are being degraded by myriad anthropogenic disturbances, altering ecosystem and climate function. We analyzed the effects of a range of land-use and climate-change disturbances on fine-scale canopy structure using a large database of profiling canopy lidar collected from disturbed and mature Amazon forest plots. At most of the disturbed sites, surveys were conducted 10–30 years after disturbance, with many exhibiting signs of recovery. Structural impacts differed in magnitude more than in character among disturbance types, producing a gradient of impacts. Structural changes were highly coordinated in a manner consistent across disturbance types, indicating commonalities in regeneration pathways. At the most severely affected site – burned igapó (seasonally flooded forest) – no signs of canopy regeneration were observed, indicating a sustained alteration of microclimates and consequently greater vulnerability to transitioning to a more open-canopy, savanna-like state. Notably, disturbances rarely shifted forests beyond the natural background of structural variation within mature plots, highlighting the similarities between anthropogenic and natural disturbance regimes, and indicating a degree of resilience among Amazon forests. Studying diverse disturbance types within an integrated analytical framework builds capacity to predict the risk of degradation-driven forest transitions.
AB - Amazon forests are being degraded by myriad anthropogenic disturbances, altering ecosystem and climate function. We analyzed the effects of a range of land-use and climate-change disturbances on fine-scale canopy structure using a large database of profiling canopy lidar collected from disturbed and mature Amazon forest plots. At most of the disturbed sites, surveys were conducted 10–30 years after disturbance, with many exhibiting signs of recovery. Structural impacts differed in magnitude more than in character among disturbance types, producing a gradient of impacts. Structural changes were highly coordinated in a manner consistent across disturbance types, indicating commonalities in regeneration pathways. At the most severely affected site – burned igapó (seasonally flooded forest) – no signs of canopy regeneration were observed, indicating a sustained alteration of microclimates and consequently greater vulnerability to transitioning to a more open-canopy, savanna-like state. Notably, disturbances rarely shifted forests beyond the natural background of structural variation within mature plots, highlighting the similarities between anthropogenic and natural disturbance regimes, and indicating a degree of resilience among Amazon forests. Studying diverse disturbance types within an integrated analytical framework builds capacity to predict the risk of degradation-driven forest transitions.
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U2 - 10.1002/fee.2590
DO - 10.1002/fee.2590
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85147154644
SN - 1540-9295
VL - 21
SP - 24
EP - 32
JO - Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
JF - Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
IS - 1
ER -