Abstract
Amazon tropical forests are being replaced by pasturelands and croplands, but they sometimes revert to regrowth forest when abandoned after a period of agricultural use. Research suggests that this secondary regrowth is limited by climate and nutrient availability and, using a coupled biosphere-atmosphere model, we investigated patterns in the regrowth of the Amazon rainforest after a full deforestation event, considering different types of nutrient stress. We found that, over a 50 year regrowth period, the reduction of precipitation caused by large-scale deforestation was not sufficient to prevent secondary forest regrowth, but this decrease in precipitation combined with nutrient limitation, due to logging and frequent fires, did indeed prevent forest regrowth in central and southern Amazonia, leading to a savannization. These results are concerning, as the northern Mato Grosso region has the highest clearing rate in Amazonia. The low resilience of the forest under nutrient stress indicates that a large scale disturbance could greatly expand the area suitable for cropland, accelerating forest disappearance.
Highlights
The Amazon tropical forest is one of the world’s most important ecosystems, with a vital role for the world’s biodiversity (Godoy et al 1999, Prance et al 2000, Dirzo and Raven 2003) and for the global carbon cycle (Clark et al 2003, Clark 2004)
Oyama and Nobre (2003) have shown that two stable vegetation-climate equilibrium states are possible in the region, one corresponds to tropical forest, and the other equilibrium state corresponds to a land cover in which most of eastern Amazonia is covered by savannas
This study described the climate and soil nutrient feedbacks involved in the recovery of the Amazon rainforest after a large‐scale deforestation
Summary
The Amazon tropical forest is one of the world’s most important ecosystems, with a vital role for the world’s biodiversity (Godoy et al 1999, Prance et al 2000, Dirzo and Raven 2003) and for the global carbon cycle (Clark et al 2003, Clark 2004). Large areas of the Amazon forest have been deforested in recent decades by cattle ranchers, with an increasing role being played. The first feedback suggests that the reduction of precipitation after a large‐scale deforestation might prevent an eventual forest regrowth Several climate modeling experiments indicate that as deforestation increases, the subsequent reductions in evapotranspiration and atmospheric heating may weaken moisture recycling and deep convection over the Amazon, lowering precipitation (Shukla et al 1990, Nobre et al 1991, Costa and Foley 2000, Costa et al 2007, Sampaio et al 2007, Senna et al 2009a)
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