How deregulation, drought, and increasing fire impact Amazonian biodiversity
Abstract
Biodiversity has contributed to ecological and climatic stability within the Amazon Basin. With imperfect knowledge of Amazonian biodiversity, the impacts of human-caused fires have yet to be fully quantified. Here, we apply remote sensing estimates of forest fires and a comprehensive collection of biodiversity data to quantify the extent to which species may have been impacted by forest fires over the last two decades. We find a close link between forest policy, forest area burned, and potential biodiversity impacts. Since 2002, ~214,053-293,705 km2 or 2.9-4.0% of the Amazon forest has burned. We estimate that 78.8-90.0% of the IUCN endangered species in Amazon could have been impacted. The impact on a species range in Amazon could be as high as 58.3%, while greater impacts are more associated with species with restricted ranges. In Brazil, deforestation policies initiated in the mid-2000s corresponded to reduced rates of burning and potential biodiversity impact. However, relaxed enforcement in 2019 seemingly began to reverse this trend. Over 17,751 km2 of forest were burned, leading to some of the most severe potential biodiversity impacts since 2009. These results highlight the critical role of active policy enforcement in the preservation of biodiversity in the Amazon.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMIN020..02F
- Keywords:
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- 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1910 Data assimilation;
- integration and fusion;
- INFORMATICS;
- 4333 Disaster risk analysis and assessment;
- NATURAL HAZARDS