No abstract

While around 20% of the Amazonian forest has been cleared for pastures and agriculture, one fourth of the remaining forest is dedicated to wood production. Most of these production forests have been or will be selectively harvested for commercial timber, but recent studies show that even soon after logging, harvested stands retain much of their tree-biomass carbon and biodiversity. Comparing species richness of various animal taxa among logged and unlogged forests across the tropics, Burivalova et al. found that despite some variability among taxa, biodiversity loss was generally explained by logging intensity (the number of trees extracted). Here, we use a network of 79 permanent sample plots (376 ha total) located at 10 sites across the Amazon Basin to assess the main drivers of time-to-recovery of post-logging tree carbon (Table S1). Recovery time is of direct relevance to policies governing management practices (i.e., allowable volumes cut and cutting cycle lengths), and indirectly to forest-based climate change mitigation interventions.

ABSTRACT(Cultivation of food species in urban gardens in Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil). Home gardens are urban spaces that guarantee human interaction with elements from the natural word, and the cultivation of food plants in these gardens can be important in complementing the diet of city residents. Th e goal of this work was to make an assessment of the eatable food plants grown in home gardens in the city of Rio Branco. In 2009 and 2010, on-site interviews were carried out using a questionnaire, which recorded the plant species of each kind of food, area of the gardens and the socioeconomic factors, for 132 gardens in Rio Branco. Th e neighborhoods selected for this study, Aeroporto Velho, Novo Horizonte and Placas, were located in the outskirts of the city. Seventy-seven food plants were recorded, which belong to 34 plant families. Of these, Solanaceae (12.6%) and Myrtaceae (11.3%) with 62.0% of the kinds of fruits and 38.0% of the vegetables. Of the total number of plants recorded, 82.3% were exotic, 34.1% were medicinal and 18.9% were ornamental. No signifi cant statistical association was detected between species and socioeconomic factors. Nonparametric analysis of variance indicated signifi cant diff erences between neighborhoods, showing that Placas had a higher quantity of species. Th e quantity of species correlated positively in the home gardens. Food plants cultivated in Rio Branco gardens conserve agrobiodiversity and aid in the health and well-being of the residents by improving the landscape, ambience and leisure space of the city.

While attention on logging in the tropics has been increasing, studies on the long-term effects of silviculture on forest dynamics and ecology remain scare and spatially limited. Indeed, most of our knowledge on tropical forests arises from studies carried out in undisturbed tropical forests. This bias is problematic given that logged and disturbed tropical forests are now covering a larger area than the so-called primary forests. A new network of permanent sample plots in logged forests, the Tropical managed Forests Observatory (TmFO), aims to fill this gap by providing unprecedented opportunities to examine long-term data on the resilience of logged tropical forests at regional and global scales. TmFO currently includes 24 experimental sites distributed across three tropical regions, with a total of 490 permanent plots and 921 ha of forest inventories.

2017-08-25T16:27:58

No abstract

Forest biomass is an essential indicator for monitoring the Earth’s ecosystems and climate. It is a critical input to greenhouse gas accounting, estimation of carbon losses and forest degradation, assessment of renewable energy potential, and for developing climate change mitigation policies such as REDD+, among others. Wall-to-wall mapping of aboveground biomass (AGB) is now possible with satellite remote sensing (RS). However, RS methods require extant, up-to-date, reliable, representative and comparable in situ data for calibration and validation. Here, we present the Forest Observation System (FOS) initiative, an international cooperation to establish and maintain a global in situ forest biomass database. AGB and canopy height estimates with their associated uncertainties are derived at a 0.25 ha scale from field measurements made in permanent research plots across the world’s forests. All plot estimates are geolocated and have a size that allows for direct comparison with many RS measurements. The FOS offers the potential to improve the accuracy of RS-based biomass products while developing new synergies between the RS and ground-based ecosystem research communities.

No abstract