The eastern Amazon Basin may become drier as a result of less regional recirculation of water in a largely deforested landscape and because of increased frequency and intensity of El Niño events induced by global warming. Drier conditions may affect several plant and soil microbial processes, including soil emissions of CO2, CH4, NO, and N2O. We report here unanticipated results of a pilot study that was initiated to test the feasibility of a larger-scale throughfall exclusion experiment. In particular, soil drying caused a switch from net consumption of atmospheric CH4 by soils in the control plot to net CH4 emission from soils in the experimentally dried plot.
Health impacts of smoke exposure in South America: increased risk for populations in the Amazonian Indigenous territories
Smoke particulate matter emitted by fires in the Amazon Basin poses a threat to human health. Past research on this threat has mainly focused on the health impacts on countries as a whole or has relied on hospital admission data to quantify the health response....