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A new study shows that 500 years of overexploitation have halved mammal populations in the once majestic Atlantic forest in South America. A new analysis of mammal populations reveals the devastating effects of human disturbance since the colonization of the region in the 1500s. Human activity is largely responsible for this overwhelming biodiversity loss according to the study. Originally covering about 1.1 million square kilometers, the Atlantic Forest lies mainly along the coast of Brazil and is the longest continuous latitudinal tract of tropical forest in the world. Activities such as agriculture and logging – as well as fires – have reduced the forest to about 0.143 million km2, which has had a significant impact on mammal populations. Credit: Juliano A. Bogoni
According to a new study from the University of East Anglia, five centuries of overexploitation have halved mammal populations in the Atlantic forest of South America.
A new analysis of mammal populations, published today in the journal PLoS ONErevealed the devastating effects of human disturbance over the last 500 years.
More than half of the assemblages of local species – sets of coexisting species – of medium and large mammals living in the forest have become extinct since the colonization of the area in the 1500s.
According to the study, human activity is largely responsible for this overwhelming loss of biodiversity, which has compared inventories published over the past 30 years with baseline data from the historical era of colonial Brazil.
Originally covering about 1.1 million square kilometers, the Atlantic Forest lies mainly along the coast of Brazil and is the longest continuous latitudinal tract of tropical forest in the world. Activities such as agriculture and logging, as well as fires, have reduced the forest to about 0.143 million km2, which has had a significant impact on mammal populations.
Dr. Juliano Bogoni, currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, led the study with Professor Carlos Peres of the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the collaborators of the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil.
A new study shows that 500 years of overexploitation have halved mammal populations in the once majestic Atlantic forest in South America. A new analysis of mammal populations reveals the devastating effects of human disturbance since the colonization of the region in the 1500s. Human activity is largely responsible for this overwhelming biodiversity loss according to the study. Originally covering about 1.1 million square kilometers, the Atlantic Forest lies mainly along the coast of Brazil and is the longest continuous latitudinal tract of tropical forest in the world. Activities such as agriculture and logging – as well as fires – have reduced the forest to about 0.143 million km2, which has had a significant impact on mammal populations. Credit: Juliano A. Bogoni
The team analyzed the loss of species among nearly 500 local species of medium to large mammals that had been studied in the vast Atlantic Forest region.
In addition to examining individual species, the team examined groups of species in order to try to understand which species groups related to the environment had decreased the faster. They found that apex predators and large carnivores, such as jaguars and pumas, as well as large herbivores, such as tapirs, were among the groups whose numbers had suffered the most.
Prof. Peres from the UEA School of Environmental Sciences said, "Our results underscore the urgent need to take action to protect these fragile ecosystems.
"In particular, we need to conduct more comprehensive studies at the regional level to understand the local characteristics and the factors of species loss.
Credit: Mariana Landis 2011 – Laboratory for Ecology, Management and Conservation of Wildlife (LEMaC)
"Protecting the Atlantic forest and other tropical forest ecosystems often relies on uncooperative political will and sound public policies, so we need convincing data to drive change."
Dr. Bogoni, the first author of the study, said, "The mammal diversity of the once majestic Atlantic Forest has been greatly reduced to a pale shadow of the other.
"These habitats are now often very incomplete, limited to insufficiently large forest remains trapped in an open-ended extinction vortex.This collapse is unprecedented in history and prehistory and can be directly attributed to human activity. "
Explore more:
Generalized local extinctions in tropical forest "remnants"
More information:
Juliano André Bogoni et al., You wanted to be here: how much is the Atlantic forest biome of its medium to large mammal fauna defeated? PLOS ONE (2018). DOI: 10.1371 / newspaper.pone.0204515
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