The Amazon basin contains the largest continuous area of tropical rainforests in the world, and has a crucial role in regulating Earth’s climate1. Rates of tropical-rainforest deforestation and the impacts of fire and drought there are well established2,3. Less is known, however, about how these factors might interact to affect biodiversity, and about the role that forest policy and its enforcement have had over time. Writing in Nature, Feng et al.4 address these issues.
Effects of deforestation on headwater stream fish assemblages in the Upper Xingu River Basin, Southeastern Amazonia
Effects of deforestation on headwater stream fish assemblages in the Upper Xingu River Basin, Southeastern Amazonia
The expansion of the Amazonian agricultural frontier represents the most extensive land cover change in the world, detrimentally affecting stream ecosystems which collectively harbor the greatest diversity of freshwater fish on the planet. Our goal was to test the...