Land change and loss of landscape diversity at the Caatinga phytogeographical domain – Analysis of pattern-process relationships with MODIS land cover products (2001–2012)

Schulz, Christian; Koch, Robert L.; Cierjacks, Arne; Kleinschmit, Birgit

doi:10.1016/j.jaridenv.2016.10.004

Cited by 52 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Hence, effective protection and management options for existing forests in semi‐arid areas are needed to counteract these processes. Recent studies suggest an increase in Caatinga forest cover during the last decades (Aide et al., ; Schulz et al., ) but the underlying processes (changes in grazing management or reduction of slash‐and‐burn agriculture) have not been studied so far.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The two largest continuous areas of SDTF are both located in South America (Caatinga: northeastern Brazil; Gran Chaco: eastern Bolivia, western Paraguay, and northern Argentina) and comprise more than 50% of the total tropical dry forests worldwide (Miles et al., ). With approximately 850,000 km 2 (Schulz, Koch, Cierjacks, & Kleinschmit, ), the larger of these two areas is the Caatinga. It covers about 10% of the Brazilian territory (IBGE, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At present, only about 1% of the Caatinga area is strictly protected (“Unidades de Proteção Integral”; Leal et al., ). Yet, recent studies reported an increase in forest cover during the last decades (Aide et al., ; Schulz et al., ), indicating a slow recovery of the Caatinga vegetation (Cabral, Sampaio, & Almeida‐Cortez, ; Santos et al., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Grazing reduces plant species diversity of Caatinga dry forests in northeastern Brazil

Schulz

Guschal

Kowarik

et al. 2019

Applied Vegetation Science

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Questions:In many arid and semi-arid regions of the world, livestock husbandry is the main land use and grazing is one of the main challenges for biodiversity conservation. This also applies to the Caatinga, a unique seasonally dry tropical forest in northeastern Brazil. It is considered one of the most threatened ecosystems of Brazil.To protect semi-arid regions from biodiversity loss, degradation, and desertification, sustainable management practices are urgently needed. However, the effect of different grazing intensities on plant diversity is not yet fully understood. In this study, we examined the effect of different grazing intensities on plant species composition, alpha and beta diversity.Location: Vicinity of the Itaparica Reservoir, northeastern Brazil. Methods:We assessed the effects of different grazing intensities (high, intermediate, no/low) on species composition, alpha and beta diversity of the tree and shrub, and the herb layer in a Caatinga area. Plant diversity of the tree and shrub layer was assessed on 45 study plots (each 20 m × 20 m), while the diversity of herbs was studied on a subset of 36 plots (four subplots, each 2 m × 2 m). Results:In total, we recorded 140 plant taxa including morphospecies. Grazing at high intensities significantly reduced almost all measures of alpha and beta diversity (tree and shrub layer) compared to areas with no or low grazing. In contrast, species composition was not significantly related to grazing but instead to altitude, which serves as an indicator of reduced anthropogenic impact such as slash-and-burn agriculture or tree harvesting. Conclusion:Overall, the study results show that the current livestock management has negative effects on plant diversity in Caatinga ecosystems. These results have been incorporated into guidelines provided to regional stakeholders including recommendations for adapted land-management practices that protect and foster the biodiversity of dry forests while sustaining local livelihoods. K E Y W O R D S biodiversity, Brazil, Caatinga, goats, grazing, intermediate disturbance hypothesis, land management, land use, livestock husbandry, seasonally dry tropical forest, semi-arid | 349 Additional supporting information may be found online in the Supporting Information section at the end of the article. Appendix S1. Vegetation plot data. Plant species, their growth form and frequency in a caatinga area in northeastern Brazil. Appendix S2. Plant species, their growth form and frequency in a caatinga area in northeastern Brazil. Appendix S3. p Values of generalised linear models (GLMs) with diversity indices as response variables. Appendix S4. Beta diversity for the herb layer at three grazing intensities (no/low, intermediate, high). Appendix S5. p Values of generalised linear models (GLMs) with Bray-Curtis dissimilarity index as response variables. Appendix S6. Plant diversity of caatinga systems in the tree and shrub layer with inclusion parameters and site description. Appendix S7. Plant diversity of caatinga systems in the herb lay...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Grazing reduces plant species diversity of Caatinga dry forests in northeastern Brazil

Schulz

Guschal

Kowarik

et al. 2019

Applied Vegetation Science

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“…Despite often being referred to as a desert, the Caatinga is a semi-arid region, making up about 10% of the country, has only about 700 mm of rainfall per year, falling sometimes erratically with high temperatures and low humidity [116,117]. and the dominant vegetation is woody shrub land and savanna with abundant xerophytic species, but contains mosaics of seasonally dry tropical forests and is one of the most populated semi-arid regions of the world [96,103,[116][117][118][119]. The Atlantic Forest covers a wide longitudinal area and has been heavily fragmented to only about 10% of the native vegetation remaining after once having about 150 million ha of rainforest [88,120].…”

Section: Study Areas: Brazilian Biomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatiotemporal Patterns and Phenology of Tropical Vegetation Solar-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence across Brazilian Biomes Using Satellite Observations

et al. 2019

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Solar-induced fluorescence (SIF) has been empirically linked to gross primary productivity (GPP) in multiple ecosystems and is thus a promising tool to address the current uncertainties in carbon fluxes at ecosystem to continental scales. However, studies utilizing satellite-measured SIF in South America have concentrated on the Amazonian tropical forest, while SIF in other regions and vegetation classes remain uninvestigated. We examined three years of Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) SIF data for vegetation classes within and across the six Brazilian biomes (Amazon, Atlantic Forest, Caatinga, Cerrado, Pampa, and Pantanal) to answer the following: (1) how does satellite-measured SIF differ? (2) What is the relationship (strength and direction) of satellite-measured SIF with canopy temperature (T can ), air temperature (T air ), and vapor pressure deficit (VPD)? (3) How does the phenology of satellite-measured SIF (duration and amplitude of seasonal integrated SIF) compare? Our analysis shows that OCO-2 captures a significantly higher mean SIF with lower variability in the Amazon and lower mean SIF with higher variability in the Caatinga compared to other biomes. OCO-2 also distinguishes the mean SIF of vegetation types within biomes, showing that evergreen broadleaf (EBF) mean SIF is significantly higher than other vegetation classes (deciduous broadleaf (DBF), grassland (GRA), savannas (SAV), and woody savannas (WSAV)) in all biomes. We show that the strengths and directions of correlations of OCO-2 mean SIF to T can , T air , and VPD largely cluster by biome: negative in the Caatinga and Cerrado, positive in the Pampa, and no correlations were found in the Pantanal, while results were mixed for the Amazon and Atlantic Forest. We found mean SIF most strongly correlated with VPD in most vegetation classes in most biomes, followed by T can . Seasonality from time series analysis reveals that OCO-2 SIF measurements capture important differences in the seasonal timing of SIF for different classes, details masked when only examining mean SIF differences. We found that OCO-2 captured the highest base integrated SIF and lowest seasonal pulse integrated SIF in the Amazon for all vegetation classes, indicating continuous photosynthetic activity in the Amazon exceeds other biomes, but with small seasonal increases. Surprisingly, Pantanal EBF SIF had the highest total integrated SIF of all classes in all biomes due to a large seasonal pulse. Additionally, the length of seasons only accounts for about 30% of variability in total integrated SIF; thus, integrated SIF is likely captures differences in photosynthetic activity separate from structural differences. Our results show that satellite measurements of SIF can distinguish important functioning and phenological differences in vegetation classes and thus has the potential to improve our understanding of productivity and seasonality in the tropics.

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“…The main biomes of NEB are Amazônia (Amazonia), Cerrado, Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Forest), and Caatinga, which cover about 7%, 29%, 10%, and 52% of the entire NEB, respectively (Figure 1b). The Caatinga biome is characterized by a mosaic of seasonally dry tropical forests and thorn scrubs, with more than 2000 species of vascular plants [52,53], commonly inappropriate for rainfed agriculture [51]. The biome Cerrado is a vast tropical savanna, whose main habitats are forest savanna, wooded savanna, park savanna, gramineous-woody savanna, savanna wetlands, and gallery forests [54].…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of the SMOS-Derived Soil Water Deficit Index as Agricultural Drought Index in Northeast of Brazil

Paredes‐Trejo

Barbosa

2017

Water

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Northeast Brazil (NEB) has recently experienced one of its worst droughts in the last decades, with large losses on rainfed agriculture. Soil moisture is the main variable to monitor agricultural drought. The remote sensing approach for drought monitoring has been enriched with the launch of the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) in November 2009 by European Space Agency (ESA). In this work, the Soil Water Deficit Index (SWDI) was calculated using the SMOS L2 soil moisture in the NEB. The SMOS-derived SWDI data (SWDIS) were evaluated against the atmospheric water deficit (AWD) calculated from in situ observations. Comparisons were made at seven-day and 0.25 • scales, over the time-span of June 2010 to December 2013. It was found that the SWDIS has a reasonably good overall performance in terms of the drought-weeks detection (skill = 0.986) and capture of the upper soil moisture temporal dynamic (r = 0.652), implying that the SWDIS could be used to track agricultural droughts. Furthermore, SWDIS shows poor performance at sites located in mountains regions affected by severe droughts (−0.10 ≤ r ≤ 0.10). It is also noted that the vegetal cover/use, climate regime, and soil texture have little influence on the AWD-SWDIS coupling.

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Land change and loss of landscape diversity at the Caatinga phytogeographical domain – Analysis of pattern-process relationships with MODIS land cover products (2001–2012)

Cited by 52 publications

References 61 publications

Grazing reduces plant species diversity of Caatinga dry forests in northeastern Brazil

Grazing reduces plant species diversity of Caatinga dry forests in northeastern Brazil

Spatiotemporal Patterns and Phenology of Tropical Vegetation Solar-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence across Brazilian Biomes Using Satellite Observations

Evaluation of the SMOS-Derived Soil Water Deficit Index as Agricultural Drought Index in Northeast of Brazil

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