Widespread Forest Vertebrate Extinctions Induced by a Mega Hydroelectric Dam in Lowland Amazonia

Benchimol, Maíra; Peres, Carlos A.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0129818

Cited by 189 publications

(152 citation statements)

References 54 publications

(78 reference statements)

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“…Second, our results imply that if the climate becomes drier, fire-prone savannas might expand through floodable areas toward the core of the Amazon forest and become sources of fires that may spread to large parts of that region. Indeed, the spread of fires from floodplains to adjacent uplands has been shown in Africa (28) and central Amazon (22) with negative impacts on vegetation structure (22) and biodiversity (29). In conclusion, our results suggest that seasonally inundated forests throughout the Amazon represent an Achilles' heel when it comes to resilience of this massive system.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 55%

Floodplains as an Achilles’ heel of Amazonian forest resilience

Flores

Holmgren

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

107

112

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The massive forests of central Amazonia are often considered relatively resilient against climatic variation, but this view is challenged by the wildfires invoked by recent droughts. The impact of such fires that spread from pervasive sources of ignition may reveal where forests are less likely to persist in a drier future. Here we combine field observations with remotely sensed information for the whole Amazon to show that the annually inundated lowland forests that run through the heart of the system may be trapped relatively easily into a fire-dominated savanna state. This lower forest resilience on floodplains is suggested by patterns of tree cover distribution across the basin, and supported by our field and remote sensing studies showing that floodplain fires have a stronger and longer-lasting impact on forest structure as well as soil fertility. Although floodplains cover only 14% of the Amazon basin, their fires can have substantial cascading effects because forests and peatlands may release large amounts of carbon, and wildfires can spread to adjacent uplands. Floodplains are thus an Achilles' heel of the Amazon system when it comes to the risk of large-scale climatedriven transitions.T he sensitivity of the Amazon rainforest to climate change is a central issue in global change research (1, 2). In particular, there are concerns that a drier climate may promote a shift from forest to savanna (3, 4). All studies so far suggest that this is most likely at the southern and eastern peripheral regions where precipitation is relatively low and seasonal (2-5) and the risk of wildfires is higher (4, 6-11). Although rainfall is a dominant factor explaining forest resilience, other environmental factors obviously play a role (12)(13)(14). Arguably, the most striking variation in the nature of forests in the wet Amazonian system is related to seasonal inundations. Approximately one-seventh of the Amazon is inundated a substantial part of the year (15), causing these ecosystems to differ in many ways from the dominant upland terra firme forests (SI Brief Ecology of Floodplain and Upland Ecosystems). Here we ask whether these differences related to seasonal inundation affect forest resilience and the risk of shifting into a fire-dominated savanna state. We used two approaches to contrast the resilience of floodplain and upland forests across the Amazon (Fig. 1 A and B). First, we estimated the long-term relative resilience of forest and savanna in both ecosystems from the density distributions of tree cover (3, 16) using MODIS vegetation continuous field (VCF) data at 250 m resolution (SI Methods). Second, we studied postfire recovery of both forest types using field and remote sensing data (Fig. S1). Using annual MODIS VCF data, we measured the recovery of over 250 sites that burned during the severe droughts of 1997 and 2005 ( Fig. S1; Table S1; and Dataset S1). Using field data on tree basal area and soil variables from multiple burned forests in the central Amazon region, we validated the basin-wide analyses of ...

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 55%

Floodplains as an Achilles’ heel of Amazonian forest resilience

Flores

Holmgren

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

107

112

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“…The potential impact of large-scale development projects or habitat change, such as deforestation and dams in rivers, on availability of wild foods in the Amazon Basin, also needs further consideration. For example, recent studies emphasize the impact of dams on fish and bushmeat species in the Amazon (Hallwass et al 2013;Benchimol and Peres 2015). These major changes are in course in most of the .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

From fish and bushmeat to chicken nuggets: the nutrition transition in a continuum from rural to urban settings in the Tri frontier Amazon region

Van Vliet,

Quiceno-Mesa,

Cruz-Antia

et al. 2015

Ethnobio Conserv

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The current contribution of wild animal proteins has been poorly quantified, particularly in the rapidly growing urban centers of tropical forests. Lack of such evidence impairs food security strategies to include the diversity of food supply inherent to traditional food systems. In this study we focus on wild sources of animal protein: wild fish and bushmeat, which have traditionally been important in people's diets in the Amazon. We compare the consumption of wild and non-wild (domestic, processed) sources of animal proteins in a rural to urban gradient in the Colombian Amazon. In rural areas, most people are indigenous from the Ticuna ethnical group, while in urban areas, the population is a result of a mixture of different indigenous groups, mestizos and colonos. Our results show that, despite its geographical position, the region is increasingly dependent on domestic and industrialized sources of animal protein. The frequency of wild fish and bushmeat consumption decreases from rural to urban areas to the advantage of domestic and processed meat/fish. Patterns of animal protein consumption for indigenous children indicate that indigenous families adopt non-indigenous consumption patterns when they move to town. Bushmeat consumption in urban areas is more frequent in wealthier families and could be considered as a luxury product. In urban areas, chicken is the protein of the poor and beef replaces chicken for the families that can afford it. In rural settings, chicken replaces wild sources of animal protein as people increase their income and move away from forest/ agriculture dependent livelihoods. Despite, the low importance of bushmeat and wild fish in urban areas measured in terms of consumption frequencies, we show that these foods continue to play an important role in terms of dietary diversity, which is fundamental to eradicate energy and micronutrient deficiencies. The increased consumption of industrial chicken in rural communities poses important food security issues because it provides less nutritional balance than wild foods and access to this protein is dependent on the availability of cash in rural communities. While the harvest of wild proteins poses a sustainability problem, industrial foods also carry a heavy ecological footprint. In conclusion our results call for a better attention to the changes observed in diets in the Amazon, given their potential food security and ecological consequences.

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“…And in the same way that habitat fragmentation can improve some community metrics (such as beta-diversity), it may also have positive consequences for some functional metrics. For example, Magnago et al [11] found functional divergence to decrease with increasing patch size, whereas the majority of authors found an increase with patch size [9,28,32,33]. There are a number of reasons why these results may have been generated.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Patch shape was considered in only two studies, both of which found that more compact patches supported communities with a more diverse array of functions, with higher functional diversity [30] and divergence [39]. (3) Patch size: A positive relationship between patch size and functional richness was found for copro-necrophagous beetles [28], mammals [9], trees [32] and vertebrates [33]. Nonetheless, these results did not hold for all plant communities [11] or birds [34], in which functional richness was found to vary independently of patch size.…”

Section: Functional Diversity Metrics and Landscape Configurationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional Diversity Metrics: How They Are Affected by Landscape Change and How They Represent Ecosystem Functioning in the Tropics

Hatfield

Harrison

Banks-Leite

2018

Curr Landscape Ecol Rep

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It is generally expected that landscape changes, such as habitat loss and fragmentation, should negatively affect functional diversity metrics, which in turn impact ecosystem functioning. In this review, we search for studies conducted in the tropics and published in the last 10 years to understand how different aspects of landscape change affect functional diversity metrics and how the latter are associated to ecosystem functioning. In total, we found 24 papers that assessed the effects of landscape metrics on functional diversity, evenness, divergence and composition, and although there was a general trend for functional diversity metrics to improve with habitat cover, we found a wide range of responses. Most surprisingly, however, we only found five studies from the tropics assessing the extent to which functional diversity metrics were correlated to measures of ecosystem functioning, and in general, very weak support was found. In conclusion, our results show that it is crucial to first investigate the level to which functional diversity metrics truly represent or may lead to changes in ecosystem functioning, and this is particularly important for animal communities in the tropics. Without such confirmation, there is little reason to pursue further work to reach a consensus regarding how landscape modification affects functional diversity metrics.

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Widespread Forest Vertebrate Extinctions Induced by a Mega Hydroelectric Dam in Lowland Amazonia

Cited by 189 publications

References 54 publications

Floodplains as an Achilles’ heel of Amazonian forest resilience

Floodplains as an Achilles’ heel of Amazonian forest resilience

From fish and bushmeat to chicken nuggets: the nutrition transition in a continuum from rural to urban settings in the Tri frontier Amazon region

Functional Diversity Metrics: How They Are Affected by Landscape Change and How They Represent Ecosystem Functioning in the Tropics

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