Publications by authors named "P H S Brancalion"

Forest restoration has been a common practice to safeguard water quality and stream health but it is unclear to which extent and pace forest restoration recovers stream ecosystem structure and functions. Also, stream health might be affected by the forest restoration type and the quality of the interventions. Here, we sought to evaluate the recovery of stream habitat and water quality through forest restoration in catchments dominated by pasturelands, and explored the relationship between landscape structure and stream ecosystem recovery.

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Ecological Corridors (ECs) are proposed as cost-effective solutions to improve ecological connectivity in fragmented landscapes. Planning the implementation of ECs must take into account landscape features as they affect the viability of the endeavor and the ECs associated costs. A novel set of geoprocessing tools were used to assess (i) economic viability; (ii) socioeconomic cost-effectiveness; and (iii) to determine priority targets for ECs establishment in a highly fragmented region of Atlantic Forest.

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Habitat loss can lead to biotic homogenization (decrease in β diversity) or differentiation (increase in β diversity) of biological communities. However, it is unclear which of these ecological processes predominates in human-modified landscapes. We used data on vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants to quantify β diversity based on species occurrence and abundance among communities in 1367 landscapes with varying amounts of habitat (<30%, 30-60%, or >60% of forest cover) throughout the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Analysis of data from over 1 million forest plots and thousands of tree species shows that wood density varies significantly by latitude, being up to 30% denser in tropical forests compared to boreal forests, and is influenced mainly by temperature and soil moisture.
  • * The research also finds that disturbances like human activity and fire alter wood density at local levels, affecting forest carbon stock estimates by up to 21%, emphasizing the importance of understanding environmental impacts on forest ecosystems.
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Background: Nature-based interventions (NbIs) for climate change mitigation include a diverse set of interventions aimed at conserving, restoring, and/or managing natural and modified ecosystems to improve their ability to store and sequester carbon and avoid greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Recent projections estimate that terrestrial NbIs can lead to more than one-third of the climate change mitigation necessary to meet the Paris Climate Agreement by 2030. Further, these interventions can provide co-benefits in the form of social and ecological outcomes.

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