Moist tropical forests in Amazonia and elsewhere are subjected to increasingly severe drought episodes through the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and possibly through deforestation-driven reductions in rainfall. The effects of this trend on tropical forest canopy dynamics, emissions of greenhouse gases, and other ecological functions are potentially large but poorly understood. We established a throughfall exclusion experiment in an east-central Amazon forest (Tapajo´s National Forest, Brazil) to help understand these effects.
The drivers and impacts of Amazonforest degradation
The drivers and impacts of Amazonforest degradation
Approximately 2.5 × 10⁶ square kilometers of the Amazon forest are currently degraded by fire, edge effects, timber extraction, and/or extreme drought, representing 38% of all remaining forests in the region. Carbon emissions from this degradation total up to 0.2...