Loss of tropical rainforest and global warming: Recent study from the Brazilian atlantic forest proves that there is more than meets the eye
According to a recent study done by a group of scientists from around the world for the highly fragmented and endangered Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest the amount of carbon lost from an area where agricultural development has occured is not only related to the actual area converted to other land uses but also to the deegre of fragmentation of the remaining forest in an area. This is because the edge effects are highlly significant in the smaller fragments beyond a given geographical size and a great deal of carbon is released indirectly from forest edges in the atmosphere due to this. This makes an excellent case towards preserving or restoring forest to have a certain minimum size as has been advocated for more than 30 years by ecologists and related professionals for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from defforestation.
Satelite photo from fragmented Atlantic forest in Brazil
This work has been published in the peer reviewed journal Nature. The rellevant refference can be found bellow.
Publication
Sandro Pütz, Jürgen Groeneveld, Klaus Henle, Christoph Knogge, Alexandre Camargo Martensen, Markus Metz, Jean Paul Metzger, Milton Cezar Ribeiro, Dantas de Paula, M. & Andreas Huth.
Long-term carbon loss in fragmented Neotropical forests. Nature Communications 5:5037 doi: 10.1038/ncomms6037 (2014).
Long-term carbon loss in fragmented Neotropical forests. Nature Communications 5:5037 doi: 10.1038/ncomms6037 (2014).
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