Abstract
In the tropics, human modified landscapes (HMLs) emerge as potential areas where important levels of biodiversity, ecosystem functions, and services can be conserved. Yet, it is unknown which landscape structures may enable this goal. We studied how tree diversity (SD), aboveground biomass (AGB) and aboveground carbon storage (ACS) change across a gradient of forest-to-agriculture conversion process (0 to ~100%). We addressed following questions: i) How SD, AGB and ACS change with landscape composition and configuration, as the forest-to-agriculture conversion advances? ii) Do such changes depend on the spatial scale of the landscapes, iii) Are there thresholds of forest habitat loss after which SD, AGB and ACS collapse? iv) If so, what explains such response? Changes in landscape composition, but not in configuration, explained the SD, ABG, ACS variability across the deforestation gradient. Percentage of forest cover was the best predictor of such variation, independently the landscape spatial scale. SD declined convexly, showing a critical collapse threshold, as forest loss advanced. AGB and ACS decreased exponentially with a 50% of reduction at ~30% of forest loss. Elimination of several rare species with high contributions to AGB explained the exponential decrease of AGB and ACS. We accord with previous studies targeted in other assemblages and forest trees variables that maintaining >40% of forest is critical for tree diversity conservation. We broaden this estimation by alerting that ecosystem functions (e.g., AGB) and services (e.g., ACS) reduce with deforestation in a faster way than biodiversity. This exemplifies that different ecosystem attributes are affected differentially by deforestation, adding a strong challenge for conservation in HML.
Published Version
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