Some model experiments predict a large-scale substitution of Amazon forest by savannah-like vegetation by the end of the twenty-first century. Expanding global demands for biofuels and grains, positive feedbacks in the Amazon forest fire regime and drought may...

In Amazonia, millions of hectares of forest have been converted to cattle pasture then abandoned. On sites with histories of heavy use, forest recovery is slow. We compared the process of tree establishment in an abandoned pasture with a history of heavy use and in...