Deborah Faria

Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz · Departamento de Ciências Biológicas (DCB)

Forest loss is one of the most serious threats to biodiversity in the tropics and mainly occurs due to the conversion of native forests by the expansion of human activities. In addition, regional climate change is likely to adversely affect the remaining biota. These disturbances may have direct or indirect consequences on the demographic structure...

In southern Bahia, Brazil’s traditional cacao region, cacao is mostly grown under the shade of thinned Atlantic Forest (known as cabruca). These agroforestry systems are gradually being replaced by unshaded cacao monocultures that might be more vulnerable to changes in climate, however the impacts of climate change have not been evaluated yet. We a...

O Brasil nasceu na Bahia, sendo sua primeira “capital” em séculos. A Bahia é o quinto estado brasileiro em extensão territorial, possuindo uma ampla rede hidrográfica, a maior costa atlântica e três biomas terrestres: Mata Atlântica, Caatinga e Cerrado. A primeira instituição de ensino superior baiana foi a UFBA, fundada em 1808 e posteriormente fo...

Introdução: A perda de habitat e a fragmentação florestal são processos que levam a alterações na composição florística dos remanescentes florestais, afetando diretamente a sobrevivência das árvores de grande porte, ou emergentes. Este aumento na mortalidade de árvores cria clareiras no dossel da floresta de diferentes tamanhos que, em última análi...

The expansion of human activities has led to drastic changes in the original landscapes in which tropical forests stand, causing the loss and fragmentation of natural habitats. Both processes induce changes in forest structure and local microclimatic conditions that are important modulators of the survival and demographic structure of plant species...

The Atlantic Forest is one of the most threatened tropical forests in the world, being drastically reduced, fragmented, and disturbed. The drastic process of anthropic occupation and exploitation of this biome has, in many cases, led to the introduction of exotic species, such as the jackfruits (Artocarpus heterophyllus). However, studies on the in...

Tropical forests are being lost and modified at an unprecedented rate, with extant biodiversity increasingly restricted to human-modified landscapes. Resulting changes in landscape structure are shaping diversity patterns, with features such as habitat amount, edge density, and matrix quality determining species persistence. We assessed the importa...

Landscape-scale habitat loss can change the floristic composition of forest fragments, affecting the survival of specific groups of plants, as shade-tolerant and emergent trees. This increasing in tree mortality creates forest canopy gaps of different sizes that ultimately determine the solar radiation available in the forest understorey. We conduc...

By analyzing 6,480 tree leaf samples from 57 sites within Brazilian biomes, we considered whether vegetation types in terrestrial ecosystems reflect biogeochemical diversity and whether they fit into a leaf economics spectrum (LES). To achieve this, we investigated the relations among leaf carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) concentrations, their isotope n...

The initial online publication contained typesetting mistakes in the author information. The original article has been corrected.

Aim Here we examine the functional profile of regional tree species pools across the latitudinal distribution of Neotropical moist forests, and test trait–climate relationships among local communities. We expected opportunistic strategies (acquisitive traits, small seeds) to be overrepresented in species pools further from the equator, but also in...

Tropical forests have been intensively degraded and deforested for different anthropogenic uses, mostly associated to agricultural expansion due to increasing human demands. Therefore, an emerging number of studies has advocated on the benefits of land-sharing strategies such as agroforestry systems which conciliate biodiversity conservation with p...

Context Tropical forests are great reservoirs of carbon but they still suffer high rates of deforestation despite their importance. Yet, large uncertainty remains about the effects of landscape-level forest loss on biomass of forest remnants, and how these effects vary with disturbance intensity at larger regional scales. Objectives We evaluated w...

The Atlantic Forest is one of the most threatened tropical forests in the world, being drastically reduced, fragmented and disturbed. The drastic process of anthropic occupation and exploitation of this biome has, in many cases, led to the introduction of exotic species, such as the jackfruits ( Artocarpus heterophyllus ). However, studies on the i...

The exuberant, pristine forest originally occupying an area stretching along today’s southern Bahia to the northern portion of Espírito Santo states was coined as the Hileia Baiana and represents a unique and highly diverse biota that, in addition to high levels of endemics, suffered the influence of past connections to the Amazonian biome. Herein...

Context. Biodiversity in tropical region has declined in the last decades, mainly due to forest conversion into agricultural areas. Consequently, species occupancy in these landscapes is strongly governed by environmental changes acting at multiple spatial scales. Objectives. We investigated which environmental predictors best determines the occ...

Biodiversity-friendly agricultural systems allow the maintenance of native species even in highly fragmented landscapes by providing corridors to species dispersion and offering supplementary resources for animal populations. In the tropical region, cocoa agroforestry systems are of great importance for biodiversity conservation as they maintain pa...

Land-use change is considered the greatest threat to biodiversity worldwide. As such, identifying the drivers that shape biological communities is crucial for enhancing conservation strategies in human-modified tropical landscapes. We used a hybrid patch-landscape design and a multi model inference approach to assess the relative impacts of forest...

Agriculture and development transform forest ecosystems to human-modified landscapes. Decades of research in ecology have generated myriad concepts for the appropriate management of these landscapes. Yet, these concepts are often contradictory and apply at different spatial scales, making the design of biodiversity-friendly landscapes challenging....

The thin-spined porcupine (Chaetomys subspinosus Olfers, 1818) is an endemic and threatened rodent from the Atlantic Forest biological hotspot. Previous studies have demonstrated it follows a strictly leaf-based diet, limited to a few tree species, although such information is derived from few individuals (n = 7) resident in small forest fragments....

We are selecting four (4) Ph.D. candidates to conduct research in agricultural landscapes in the biodiversity-rich Atlantic Forest of northeastern Brazil. Selected candidates will study the Ecosystem Services, Restoration Ecology and Economic Valuation to achieve their Ph.D. in Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation at the Universidade Estadual de S...

Is it possible to reconcile production with biodiversity conservation? The south of Bahia, where cocoa is planted under the shade of native forest - called cabrucas - is helping us to answer this question. Get to know a little about this region and our research in this video, and fall in love with the landscape, culture and science that we are unve...

Vulnerability to habitat fragmentation Habitat fragmentation caused by human activities has consequences for the distribution and movement of organisms. Betts et al. present a global analysis of how exposure to habitat fragmentation affects the composition of ecological communities (see the Perspective by Hargreaves). In a dataset consisting of 448...

Xenarthrans—anteaters, sloths, and armadillos—have essential functions for ecosystem maintenance, such as insect control and nutrient cycling, playing key roles as ecosystem engineers. Because of habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting pressure, and conflicts with domestic dogs, these species have been threatened locally, regionally, or even across...

Fruit removal is a key component of the seed dispersal process with direct consequences for plant recruitment. Anthropogenic disturbances might affect removal rates by changing frugivore diversity and their behavior. Here, we investigated the effects of local forest structure and landscape context on fruit removal of two common pioneer species of M...

Xenarthrans—anteaters, sloths, and armadillos—have essential functions for ecosystem maintenance, such as insect control and nutrient cycling, playing key roles as ecosystem engineers. Because of habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting pressure, and conflicts with domestic dogs, these species have been threatened locally, regionally, or even across...

1.Agricultural activities such as crop production and cattle ranching are rapidly replacing forests worldwide, especially in the tropics. Resulting forest loss can adversely affect biodiversity in many ways, including trajectories of community reassembly, community composition, forest structural profiles, and taxonomic diversity. Yet, effects of fo...

Scientists have long been trying to understand why the Neotropical region holds the highest diversity of birds on Earth. Recently, there has been increased interest in morpho- logical variation between and within species, and in how climate, topography, and anthropogenic pressures may explain and affect phenotypic variation. Because morphological d...

Scientists have long been trying to understand why the Neotropical region holds the highest diversity of birds on Earth. Recently, there has been increased interest in morphological variation between and within species, and in how climate, topography and anthropogenic pressures may explain and affect phenotypic variation. Because morphological data...

Experimental exclosure of birds and bats constitutes a powerful tool to study the impacts of wildlife on pests and crop yields in agricultural systems. Though widely utilized, exclosure experiments are not standardized across studies. Indeed, key differences surrounding the design, materials, and protocols for implementing field-based exclosure exp...

Study Description In a recently accepted article for publication in Ecological Applications, we observed that habitat simplification and fruit scarcity in highly deforested landscapes of Brazilian Atlantic forest limits the maintenance of forest-dependent frugivorous birds. Conversely, landscapes with higher forest edge amount showed higher diversi...

The threatened thin-spined porcupine (Chaetomys subspinosus), a forest-specialist endemic to the Brazilian Atlantic forest, was rarely detected in the wild during the 20th century. Previous geographic distribution assessments were carried out nearly three decades ago and were based on interview data. We performed extensive field surveys (based on a...

Georeferenced localities of positive and negative evidence of the presence of the thin-spined porcupine (Chaetomys subspinosus) based on interviews with locals. (XLS)

Characterization of the remaining Atlantic forest within the potential extent of occurrence of the thin-spined porcupine (Chaetomys subspinosus) and zone of high climatic suitability predicted by modeling procedures. (DOCX)

Georeferenced localities of confirmed occurrences of the thin-spined porcupine (Chaetomys subspinosus) based on direct observations and specimens registered in scientific collections. Direct observation data provided by colleagues were included only with the previous consent and species' identification confirmed by us through pictures. (XLS)

Differences between sympatric and allopatric porcupines from the Central Atlantic forest based on body weight, quills, and external appearance. (PDF)

Com apenas 12 % de cobertura florestal original, a Mata Atlântica é um dos biomas com maior biodiversidade do mundo, mesmo que muito fragmentada devido ao desmatamento para estabelecimento de cidades, pastagens e plantios diversos (monoculturas, silviculturas e agroflorestas). No entanto, nosso conhecimento ainda é limitado no entendimento de como...

Global biodiversity is increasingly threatened by land-use change, but the direct and indirect drivers of species diversity in human-modified tropical landscapes are poorly known. Forest-dependent species are expected to be particularly sensitive to changes in landscape composition (e.g., forest loss) and configuration (e.g., increase of forest edg...

Here we compile a data set comprising morphological and life history information of 279 mammal species from 39,850 individuals of 388 populations ranging from 5.83 to 29.75 decimal degrees of latitude and 34.82 to 56.73 decimal degrees of lon- gitude in the Atlantic forest of South America. We present trait information from 16,840 individ- uals of...

Measures of traits are the basis of functional biological diversity. Numerous works consider mean species-level measures of traits while ignoring individual variance within species. However, there is a large amount of variation within species and it is increasingly apparent that it is important to consider trait variation not only between species,...

Aim: The conversion of old-growth tropical forests into human-modified landscapes threatens biodiversity worldwide, but its impact on the phylogenetic dimension of remaining communities is still poorly known. Negative and neutral responses of tree phylogenetic diversity to land use change have been reported at local and landscape scales. Here, we h...

Bats are the second most diverse mammal order and they provide vital ecosystem functions (e.g., pollination, seed dispersal, and nutrient flux in caves) and services (e.g., crop pest suppression). Bats are also important vectors of infectious diseases, harboring more than 100 different virus types. In the present study, we compiled information on b...

Forest edges influence more than half of the world's forests and contribute to worldwide declines in biodiversity and ecosystem functions. However, predicting these declines is challenging in heterogeneous fragmented landscapes. Here we assembled a global dataset on species responses to fragmentation and developed a statistical approach for quantif...

O Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia e Conservação da Biodiversidade (PPGECB) da Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz (UESC), Ilhéus-BA, oferece uma vaga de pós-doutorado PNPD (Programa Nacional de Pós-Doutorado – CAPES), para realizar pesquisa em ecologia da conservação em paisagens antrópicas no sul da Bahia, em um dos trechos mais ricos em bio...

Functional traits associated with plant-animal interactions are essential for forest functionality, given that a higher diversity of fruit traits is likely to maintain a more diverse assemblage of frugivores and consequently promote the seed dispersal function. Yet, shade-intolerant species tend to persist in human-modified landscapes in the long t...

Although marine protected areas can simultaneously contribute to biodiversity conservation and fisheries management, the global network is biased toward particular ecosystem types because they have been established primarily in an ad hoc fashion. The optimization of trade-offs between biodiversity benefits and socioeconomic values increases success...

1. Tropical forest loss can drive the extinction of forest-dependent species. Yet, non-forest species can proliferate in deforested landscapes, thus enabling community-level attributes (e.g., total abundance and richness) to be maintained in the remaining forest patches. Such compensatory dynamics have been, however, poorly investigated regarding t...

Birds perform several ecological roles for ecosystem functioning and generate great benefits for human population in some circumstances. However, environmental disturbances, mostly due to anthropogenic actions, have caused a decrease of bird diversity and can lead to the loss of their functions in the remaining habitats. Here, we conducted a scient...

As tropical rainforests are cleared, forest remnants are increasingly isolated within agricultural landscapes. Understanding how forest loss impacts on species diversity can, therefore, contribute to identifying the minimum amount of habitat required for biodiversity maintenance in human-modified landscapes. Here, we evaluate how the amount of fore...

Spatial correlation of species richness and abundance patterns. (PDF)

Frequency of tree species and their respective classification on regeneration strategy, dispersion mode, and seed size, within 20 remnants with different forest cover amount in northeastern Brazil. (PDF)

Ranking selection of best models explaining species richness and abundance of trees in function of forest cover amount at landscape-scale, for overall community and for the most important families. (PDF)

Ranking selection of best models explaining species richness and abundance of trees in function of forest cover amount at landscape-scale, for each functional trait. (PDF)

Ranking selection of best models explaining the richness and abundance of each functional trait in function of forest cover amount and distance of nearest edge. (PDF)

Ranking selection of best models explaining the richness and abundance of overall community and the most important families recorded for this study in function of forest cover amount and distance of nearest edge. (PDF)

Unveiling the minimum amount of habitat required for different taxa represents a great contribution of ecologists to conservation management actions at the landscape-scale. However, groups from different life-stages are likely to exhibit divergent shifts in species diversity and community composition, yet greatly neglected in ecological studies. We...

Insect herbivory has been observed to be affected by habitat loss and fragmentation, although the mechanisms by which these anthropogenic disturbances affect this process are not well understood. To aid in clarifying this issue, we assess the relation between forest cover and leaf damage caused by herbivorous insects on a representative tropical fo...

Forest loss threatens biodiversity, but its potential effects on multitrophic ecological interactions are poorly understood. Insect herbivory depends on complex bottom-up (e.g., resource availability and plant antiherbivore defenses) and top-down forces (e.g., abundance of predators and herbivorous), but its determinants in human-altered tropical l...

Habitat loss represents one of the main threats to tropical forests, which have reached extremely high rates of species extinction. Forest loss negatively impacts biodiversity, affecting ecological (e.g., seed dispersal) and genetic (e.g., genetic diversity and structure) processes. Therefore, understanding how deforestation influences genetic reso...