Using a simple isotope mixing model, we evaluated the relative proportion of water vapour generated by plant transpiration and by soil evaporation at two sites in the Amazon basin. Sampling was carried out at two different soil covers (forest and pasture), in a...

Nest excavation and agricultural activities of the leaf-cutting ant Atta sexdens create complex belowground heterogeneity in secondary forests of Eastern Amazonia. We examined the effects of this heterogeneity on inorganic-N stocks, net mineralization, and net...

  Many new towns were established along the Belém-Brasília Highway following its construction in the 1960s. One was Paragominas, in the northeastern region of the state of Pará (Fig. 1). Large areas of forest in this region were cut for cattle pasture during...

The government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil inherited, in its National Forest Program, a formidable proposal to increase the area designated to national forests (Flonas) in the Amazon from eight to 50 million hectares by the year 2010. This objective is...

Local management systems are generally regarded as traditional systems developed over generations. However, in the Brazilian Amazon, as in many other regions, community or collective management is a response to more recent changes in the exploitation of local...

Leaf‐cutting ants (Atta spp.) often increase in abundance following deforestation and may have an important effect on forest succession on abandoned land. In this study, we evaluated the effects of leaf‐cutting ant (Atta sexdens) activity on physical and chemical...