Erika Berenguer

Dec 9, 2024 | nature.com | Bruno Pinho |David Bauman |Isabelle Maréchaux |Maíra Benchimol |Víctor Arroyo-Rodríguez |Braulio A. Santos | +8 more

AbstractAnthropogenic landscape modification may lead to the proliferation of a few species and the loss of many. Here we investigate mechanisms and functional consequences of this winner–loser replacement in six human-modified Amazonian and Atlantic Forest regions in Brazil using a causal inference framework.

Jun 3, 2024 | nature.com | Brittany T. Trew |David Edwards |Alexander Lees |Regan Early |Martin Svátek |Radim Matula | +6 more

AbstractTropical forest biodiversity is potentially at high risk from climate change, but most species reside within or below the canopy, where they are buffered from extreme temperatures. Here, by modelling the hourly below-canopy climate conditions of 300,000 tropical forest locations globally between 1990 and 2019, we show that recent small increases in below-canopy temperature (<1 °C) have led to highly novel temperature regimes across most of the tropics.

Apr 17, 2024 | nature.com | Manoela Machado |Erika Berenguer |Paulo M. Brando |Ane A. Alencar |Imma Oliveras Menor |Jos Barlow

AbstractThe fire crises in the Amazon continues to increase the risk of large-scale forest dieback, threatening regional biodiversity and global climate. This issue gained international attention in 2019 when fires in the Brazilian Amazon led to a fire ban imposition. Despite the uncertainty of its impact, the fire ban was reenacted in subsequent years. Here we assess the effectiveness of each fire ban by comparing observed fire counts with climate-driven predictions of fire for 2019–2021.

Mar 10, 2024 | nature.com | Florian Wittmann |Rafael Assis |Aline Lopes |Rafael P. Salomão |Olaf Bánki |Carlos A. Peres | +68 more

AbstractAmazonia’s floodplain system is the largest and most biodiverse on Earth. Although forests are crucial to the ecological integrity of floodplains, our understanding of their species composition and how this may differ from surrounding forest types is still far too limited, particularly as changing inundation regimes begin to reshape floodplain tree communities and the critical ecosystem functions they underpin.

Feb 14, 2024 | nature.com | Bernardo Flores |Encarni Montoya |Boris Sakschewski |Nathália Nascimento |Arie Staal |Richard A. Betts | +8 more

AbstractThe possibility that the Amazon forest system could soon reach a tipping point, inducing large-scale collapse, has raised global concern1,2,3. For 65 million years, Amazonian forests remained relatively resilient to climatic variability. Now, the region is increasingly exposed to unprecedented stress from warming temperatures, extreme droughts, deforestation and fires, even in central and remote parts of the system1.