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Introduction
The Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragment Project (BDFFP) is a joint program between INPA and STRI. BDFFP comprehends about 40 projects and 80 people (researchers, PhD. and masters students, interns, technicians and supporting people). Understanding the consequences of forest fragmentation in Amazonia; monitoring biodiversity; improving our knowledge in natural history of species; providing training and dissemination of our experiences have been our main missions since 1979.
Additional affiliations
June 2004 - October 2015
December 2000 - July 2004
February 1991 - July 1993
Publications
Publications (118)
Sapotaceae is a very representative family that consists of large, long-lived, animal-dispersed, shade-tolerant trees typical of mature forests, and several timber species. Previously included in Pouteria, the genus Peteniodendron is distributed in South America and comprises four species commonly known as abiurana: P. durlandii (Pdu), P. jariense...
While many effects of forest fragmentation are reasonably well understood, knowledge of interspecific interactions in fragmented ecosystems is much more limited, particularly for high diversity tropical forests. Using nearly 40 years of data from the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project in Central Amazonia, we assessed whether forest fra...
Based on fertile material collected in January 2019, we report the first record of Pradosia ptychandra (Sapotaceae, Chrysophylloideae) to the flora of Amapá state, eastern Brazilian Amazonia. This new record fills a geographical gap between its previously known occurrences in the Guiana Shield and central Amazonia, improving our knowledge of its di...
This paper aims to describe and illustrate the fruits, seeds, and seedlings of Chromolucuma flavilatex (Chrysophylloideae, Sapotaceae) from central Amazonia and briefly discusses their taxonomic relevance. The observed characters can support our hypothesis that embryo morphology and seedling type are consistent in Chromolucuma species, as well as i...
Temperature is a fundamental driver of species distribution and ecosystem functioning. Yet, our knowledge of the microclimatic conditions experienced by organisms inside tropical forests remains limited. This is because ecological studies often rely on coarse-gridded temperature estimates representing the conditions at 2 m height in an open-air env...
Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we inve...
Habitat fragmentation could potentially affect tree architecture and allometry. Here, we use ground surveys of terrestrial LiDAR in Central Amazonia to explore the influence of forest edge effects on tree architecture and allometry, as well as forest biomass, 40 years after fragmentation. We find that young trees colonising the forest fragments hav...
ARTICLE Mapping density, diversity and species-richness of the Amazon tree flora Using 2.046 botanically-inventoried tree plots across the largest tropical forest on Earth, we mapped tree species-diversity and tree species-richness at 0.1-degree resolution, and investigated drivers for diversity and richness. Using only location, stratified by fore...
Indigenous societies are known to have occupied the Amazon basin for more than 12,000 years, but the scale of their influence on Amazonian forests remains uncertain. We report the discovery, using LIDAR (light detection and ranging) information from across the basin, of 24 previously undetected
pre-Columbian earthworks beneath the forest canopy. Mo...
Deforestation in the Amazon creates fragmented landscapes and increases the exposure of forest remnants to altered microclimates, leading to forest structural changes that can alter vegetation density and the forest's vertical profile. Trees are crucial to defining tropical forest structure, but lianas contribute as much as 25% of species and can i...
Graphical abstract Highlights d Ecological metadata were compiled for 7,694 sites across the Brazilian Amazon d Accessibility and proximity to research facilities influenced research probability d Knowledge gaps are greater in uplands than in wetlands and aquatic habitats d Undersampled areas overlap predicted hotspots of climate change and defores...
For more than three decades, major efforts in sampling and analyzing tree diversity
in South America have focused almost exclusively on trees with stems of at least 10
and 2.5 cm diameter, showing highest species diversity in the wetter western and
northern Amazon forests. By contrast, little attention has been paid to patterns and
drivers of diver...
Trees adjust their architecture to acclimate to various external stressors, which regulates ecological functions that are needed for growth, reproduction, and survival. Human activities, however, are fragmenting natural habitats apace and could affect tree architecture and allometry, but quantitative assessments remain lacking. Here, we leverage gr...
Secondary vegetation is increasingly recognized as a key element for biodiversity conservation and carbon stocks in human-modified landscapes. Contrasting deforestation patterns should lead to distinct patterns of forest regeneration, but this relationship is yet to be unveiled for long-term studies. Using Landsat data from 1985–2015, we analyzed t...
Philodendron rio-pretense C.A.S.Bat. & M.L.Soares belongs to the subgenus Philodendron. This newly described species is similar to P. carinatum and P. wurdackii but differs from these species primarily due to a combination of the following characteristics: persistence of the prophyll (twisted); stipe short, locules 4 – 7, ovules 1 – 2 and funiculus...
Apesar de representar um importante componente na estrutura e diversidade das florestas tropicas, as lianas ainda são pouco utilizadas na restauração florestal. Espécies lianescentes podem ser melhor escolhidas se conhecermos maneiras de propagação que são mais favoráveis. A propagação vegetativa é uma alternativa à propagação sexuada, devido as co...
Liana density is positively associated with forest fragmentation. The process of colonization by lianas is often reported without considering species composition, and consequent changes in liana species composition is relatively unexplored. To understand the compositional change associated with disturbance, we inventoried lianas in permanent plots...
Sapotaceae is a woody family that constitutes an important component of tropical forests. In Amazonia, it is amongst the 10 most representative tree families, where its members are readily recognized by the presence of latex and seeds with a conspicuous scar (hilum). Overall, the combination of characters beyond seeds has been useful in recognizing...
Most land surface models (LSMs), i.e. the land components of Earth system models (ESMs), include representation of nitrogen (N) limitation on ecosystem productivity. However, only a few of these models have incorporated phosphorus (P) cycling. In tropical ecosystems, this is likely to be important as N tends to be abundant, whereas the availability...
Forest edges are an increasingly common feature of Amazonian landscapes due to human-induced forest fragmentation. Substantial evidence shows that edge effects cause profound changes in forest biodiversity and productivity. However, the broader impacts of edge effects on ecosystem functioning remain unclear. Assessing the three-dimensional arrangem...
Predictions of the magnitude and timing of leaf phenology in Amazonian forests remain highly controversial. Here, we use terrestrial LiDAR surveys every two weeks spanning wet and dry seasons in Central Amazonia to show that plant phenology varies strongly across vertical strata in old-growth forests, but is sensitive to disturbances arising from f...
As estimativas da quantidade de troca de folhas e quando tal fenologia de folhas ocorre em florestas amazônicas continuam muito controversas. Neste trabalho, usamos levantamentos usando um LiDAR terrestre a cada duas semanas durante estações chuvosas e secas na Amazônia Central. Mostramos que a fenologia das plantas varia entre os estratos verticai...
Most Land Surface Models (LSMs), the land components of Earth system models (ESMs), include representation of N limitation on ecosystem productivity. However only few of these models have incorporated phosphorus (P) cycling. In tropical ecosystems, this is likely to be particularly important as N tends to be abundant but the availability of rock-de...
The current increase in deforestation rates of the Brazilian Amazon raises important questions about the resilience of trees in distinct vertical profiles in the world’s largest tropical rainforest. Seeking to prove the existence of temporal differences in tree growth response after forest fragmentation and edge effects through a dendrochronologica...
The Guide to the Amazonian Fruits, Seeds & Seedlings provides details of 75 tree species including description of fruits, seeds and seedlings, the germination process, comparative foliar morphology of seedlings and adults, and reprodutive phenology. Images and texts are organized to facilitate the recognition of species at different stages of devel...
Predictions of the magnitude and timing of leaf phenology in Amazonian forests remain highly controversial, which limits our understanding of future ecosystem function with a changing environment. Here, we use biweekly terrestrial LiDAR surveys spanning wet and dry seasons in Central Amazonia to show that plant phenology of old-growth forests varie...
The forests of Amazonia are among the most biodiverse plant communities on Earth. Given the immediate threats posed by climate and land-use change, an improved understanding of how this extraordinary biodiversity is spatially organized is urgently required to develop effective conservation strategies. Most Amazonian tree species are extremely rare...
O objetivo foi abordar um mosaico de vegetação de savana (áreas marginais-MS e disjuntas-DS) no Cerrado Setentrional Brasileiro para investigar o papel desempenhado por fatores ambientais como determinantes da organização comunitária em escala espacial, a fim de compreender os padrões divergentes ao longo de uma gradiente ambiental. Analisamos pred...
A new species from central Amazonia, Chromolucuma brevipedicellata (Sapotaceae, Chrysophylloideae) is described and illustrated. It occurs in terra firme (non-flooded) forests near Manaus, Brazil. We compare C. brevipedicellata to similar species in terms of diagnostic morphology, as well as near-infrared spectral differences of the leaves, and pro...
The Amazon Basin is at the center of an intensifying discourse about deforestation, land-use, and global change. To date, climate research in the Basin has overwhelmingly focused on the cycling and storage of carbon (C) and its implications for global climate. Missing, however, is a more comprehensive consideration of other significant biophysical...
Soil nutrient availability can strongly affect root traits. In tropical forests, phosphorus (P) is often considered the main limiting nutrient for plants. However, support for the P paradigm is limited, and N and cations might also control tropical forests functioning.
We used a large‐scale experiment to determine how the factorial addition of nitr...
Chrysophyllum L. (Chrysophylloideae) é o segundo maior gênero de Sapotaceae, com 71 spp. conhecidas, principalmente nos Neotrópicos. No Brasil, estima-se a ocorrência de 31 spp., sendo a maioria registrada para a Amazônia (~20 spp.). Na recente filogenia molecular da subfamília, dentre os grupos monofiléticos em Chrysophyllum, há um pequeno e inter...
Tropical ecosystems are undergoing unprecedented rates of degradation from deforestation, fire, and drought disturbances. The collective effects of these disturbances threaten to shift large portions of tropical ecosystems such as Amazon forests into savanna-like structure via tree loss, functional changes, and the emergence of fire (savannization)...
Aim: Palms are an iconic, diverse and often abundant component of tropical ecosystems that provide many ecosystem services. Being monocots, tree palms are evolutionarily, morphologically and physiologically distinct from other trees, and these differences have important consequences for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration and storage) an...
Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia...
Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia...
Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia...
Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific
spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia...
Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia...
Pouteria kossmanniae (Sapotaceae, Chrysophylloideae), a new species from Central Amazonia, is here described. It is known from the Manaus region, Amazonas, Brazil, and is found in non-flooded upland forests, known as terra firme. Illustrations are provided in addition to geographic distribution, with a comparison of the morphological and spectral (...
Background and aims
Plant-plant interactions, other than competition for light, may be responsible for arrested succession in secondary forests dominated by species of the genus Vismia. We aimed to investigate seedlings’ responses to the cumulative effect of root competition and the presence of understory vegetation in Vismia stands.
Methods
We co...
Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia...
Higher levels of taxonomic and evolutionary diversity are expected to maximize ecosystem function, yet their relative importance in driving variation in ecosystem function at large scales in diverse forests is unknown. Using 90 inventory plots across intact, lowland, terra firme, Amazonian forests and a new phylogeny including 526 angiosperm genera...
Tropical forests are known for their high diversity. Yet, forest patches do occur in the tropics where a single tree species is dominant. Such “monodominant” forests are known from all of the main tropical regions. For Amazonia, we sampled the occurrence of monodominance in a massive, basin-wide database of forest-inventory plots from the Amazon Tr...
Tropical forests are known for their high diversity. Yet, forest patches do occur in the tropics where a single tree species is dominant. Such “monodominant” forests are known from all of the main tropical regions. For Amazonia, we sampled the occurrence of monodominance in a massive, basin-wide database of forest-inventory plots from the Amazon Tr...
Tropical forests are known for their high diversity. Yet, forest patches do occur in the tropics where a single tree species is dominant. Such “monodominant” forests are known from all of the main tropical regions. For Amazonia, we sampled the occurrence of monodominance in a massive, basin-wide database of forest-inventory plots from the Amazon Tr...
Tropical forests are known for their high diversity. Yet, forest patches do occur in the tropics where a single tree species is dominant. Such “monodominant” forests are known from all of the main tropical regions. For Amazonia, we sampled the occurrence of monodominance in a massive, basin-wide database of forest-inventory plots from the Amazon Tr...
Tropical forests are known for their high diversity. Yet, forest patches do occur in the tropics where a single tree species is dominant. Such “monodominant” forests are known from all of the main tropical regions. For Amazonia, we sampled the occurrence of monodominance in a massive, basin-wide database of forest-inventory plots from the Amazon Tr...
Assessing the persistent impacts of fragmentation on aboveground structure of tropical forests is essential to understanding the consequences of land use change for carbon storage and other ecosystem functions. We investigated the influence of edge distance and fragment size on canopy structure, aboveground woody biomass (AGB), and AGB turnover in...
Recent investigations indicate a warming of Atlantic Ocean surface waters since 1980, probably influenced by anthropic actions, inducing rainfall intensification mainly during the rainy season and slight reductions during the dry season in the Amazon. Under these climate changes, trees in upland forests (terra firme) could benefit from the intensif...
Polyembryony is the differentiation and development of multiple embryos in a single seed. This characteristic can provide advantages, as more than one embryo is produced with the same amount of resources, and the probability of establishment of at least one seedling increases. However, sibling seedlings may also increase competition, affecting deve...
Although the Amazon Forest comprises the world's largest rainforest, providing fundamental ecosystem services to human well-being, vicissitudes imposed by deforestation, climate change, widespread use of fire and development of new infrastructure make the region critically vulnerable to the consequences of the creation of new forest edges. In this...
Most of the planet's diversity is concentrated in the tropics, which includes many
regions undergoing rapid climate change. Yet, while climate‐induced biodiversity
changes are widely documented elsewhere, few studies have addressed this issue
for lowland tropical ecosystems. Here we investigate whether the floristic and functional
composition of in...
Aim Large tropical trees form the interface between ground and airborne observations, offering a unique opportunity to capture forest properties remotely and to investigate their variations on broad scales. However, despite rapid development of metrics to characterize the forest canopy from remotely sensed data, a gap remains between aerial and fie...
Liana abundance and size have increased in neotropical forests. High vegetative reproductive capacity (clonality) may be the cause of high abundance in some liana species. Correlations between vegetative propagation capacity and (1) relative abundance of liana species, (2) rooting and foliar sprouting potentials of congeneric species, and (3) phylo...
Species distribution models (SDMs) are widely used in ecology and conservation. Presence-only SDMs such as MaxEnt frequently use natural history collections (NHCs) as occurrence data, given their huge numbers and accessibility. NHCs are often spatially biased which may generate inaccuracies in SDMs. Here, we test how the distribution of NHCs and Ma...
Belongs to paper Species Distribution Modelling: Contrasting presence-only models with plot abundance data by Gomes et al.
Comparing the results of modelling the area of occupancy with MaxEnt and with inverse distance weighting (IDW).
Analysis results for the predicted area of occupancy as calculated by Maxent and IDW methods. The analyses were conducted for 170 of all 227 hyperdominant species that had MaxEnt’s predicted environmental suitability significantly differ...