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.
Fire-induced tree mortality in a neotropical forest: the roles of bark traits, tree size, wood density and fire behavior
Fire-induced tree mortality in a neotropical forest: the roles of bark traits, tree size, wood density and fire behavior
Large-scale wildfires are expected to accelerate forest dieback in Amazônia, but the fire vulnerability of tree species remains uncertain, in part due to the lack of studies relating fire-induced mortality to both fire behavior and plant traits. To address this...