Landscape forest loss decreases aboveground biomass of Neotropical forests patches in moderately disturbed regions

Melito, Melina; Arroyo‐Rodríguez, Víctor; Metzger, Jean Paul; Cazetta, Eliana; Rocha‐Santos, Larissa; Melo, Felipe P. L.; Santos, Bráulio A.; Magnago, Luiz Fernando Silva; Hernández‐Ruedas, Manuel A.; Faria, Deborah; Oliveira, Alexandre Adalardo de

doi:10.1007/s10980-020-01166-7

Cited by 11 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Deforestation can also increase the susceptibility of tree stands to wind damage (Zeng et al, 2009) and tree mortality caused by desiccation (Briant et al, 2010), which can increase tree mortality and gap formation within the remaining forest patches. Thus, following previous studies (see Melito et al, 2021), preventing further tree mortality within forest patches is a matter of maintaining forest cover in the surrounding landscape, as previously known in terms of forest patch size (Laurance et al, 2000).…”

Section: Cascading Effects Of Forest Cover On Arboreal Mammalsmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…We also hypothesized that forest cover could have an indirect positive effect on arboreal mammals by increasing tree basal area and decreasing tree canopy openness. This is because these two vegetation variables depend on the abundance of large trees, a key source of resources (e.g., fruits, shelter) and canopy connectivity for arboreal wildlife (Chapman et al, 1992 ; Dupuy et al, 2012 ; Pinho et al, 2020 ) that can be negatively impacted by forest loss (Laurance et al, 2000 ; Melito et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tropical forest loss impoverishes arboreal mammal assemblages by increasing tree canopy openness

Cudney‐Valenzuela

Arroyo‐Rodríguez

Morante‐Filho

et al. 2022

Ecological Applications

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Landscape‐scale deforestation poses a major threat to global biodiversity, not only because it limits habitat availability, but also because it can drive the degradation of the remaining habitat. However, the multiple pathways by which deforestation directly and indirectly affects wildlife remain poorly understood, especially for elusive forest‐dependent species such as arboreal mammals. Using structural equation models, we assessed the direct and indirect effects of landscape forest loss on arboreal mammal assemblages in the Lacandona rainforest, Mexico. We placed camera traps in 100 canopy trees, and assessed the direct effect of forest cover and their indirect effects via changes in tree basal area and canopy openness on the abundance and diversity (i.e., species richness and exponential of Shannon entropy) of arboreal mammals. We found that forest loss had negative indirect effects on mammal richness through the increase of tree canopy openness. This could be related to the fact that canopy openness is usually inversely related to resource availability and canopy connectivity for arboreal mammals. Furthermore, independently of forest loss, the abundance and richness of arboreal mammals was positively related to tree basal area, which is typically higher in old‐growth forests. Thus, our findings suggest that arboreal mammals generally prefer old‐growth vegetation with relatively low canopy openness and high tree basal area. However, unexpectedly, forest loss was directly and positively related to the abundance and richness of mammals, probably due to a crowding effect, a reasonable possibility given the relatively short history (~40 years) of deforestation in the study region. Conversely, the Shannon diversity was not affected by the predictors we evaluated, suggesting that rare mammals (not the common species) are the ones most affected by these changes. All in all, our findings emphasize that conservation measures ought to focus on increasing forest cover in the landscape, and preventing the loss of large trees in the remaining forest patches.

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