Project Funding: 2007 - 2012

NRA: 2006 NASA: Interdisciplinary Research in Earth Science   

Funded by NASA

Abstract:
Biodiversity threats are not solely from deforestation. Human land use fragments remaining forests into smaller and smaller pieces. Forest fragments are altered habitats that change community composition and structure. It has not generally been understood that an equal or greater percentage of standing Amazonian forests have been degraded by fire, selective logging and fragmentation than have been deforested. Biodiversity implications of ongoing forest degradation and its relation to human landuse have not been quantified or placed in the spatial context necessary for predicting future landcover and hence biodiversity dynamics. The fundamental hypothesis underlying this proposal is that biodiversity levels of Amazonian forests are strongly related to two competing factors: forest disturbance and time since last disturbance. We will use Landsat and MODIS satellite imagery and derived products to create a 10 year spatial database (2000-2009) of all major forest disturbances (selective logging, fire, fragmentation and deforestation) across the Brazilian Amazon. Integration of Landsat based analyses of forest disturbance with MODIS-derived burned area products will enable us to accurately separate fires into their 3 main types; (1) deforestation fires, where slash is burned, creating relatively hot fires that burn for several hours; 2) maintenance fires, which rapidly burn as narrow fire lines through grass and early second growth; 3) forest fires, escaped fires in standing forests which vary from extremely low intensity in previously undisturbed forests to high intensity in previously burned or logged forests. We will use this database to stratify and interpret extensive field studies designed to investigate the response of 4 major indicator taxa (understorey birds, dung beetles, trees and euglossine bees) as a function of disturbance history and time since last disturbance.

Publications:

Andrade, R. B. D., Barlow, J., Louzada, J., Vaz-de-Mello, F. Z., Souza, M., Silveira, J. M., Cochrane, M. A. 2011. Quantifying Responses of Dung Beetles to Fire Disturbance in Tropical Forests: The Importance of Trapping Method and Seasonality. PLoS ONE. 6(10), e26208. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0026208

Arima, E. Y., Barreto, P., Araujo, E., Soares-Filho, B. 2014. Public policies can reduce tropical deforestation: Lessons and challenges from Brazil. Land Use Policy. 41, 465-473. DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2014.06.026

Arima, E. Y., Richards, P., Walker, R., Caldas, M. M. 2011. Statistical confirmation of indirect land use change in the Brazilian Amazon. Environmental Research Letters. 6(2), 024010. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/6/2/024010

Barber, C. P., Cochrane, M. A., Souza, C. M., Laurance, W. F. 2014. Roads, deforestation, and the mitigating effect of protected areas in the Amazon. Biological Conservation. 177, 203-209. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2014.07.004

Barber, C. P., Cochrane, M. A., Souza, C., Verissimo, A. 2012. Dynamic performance assessment of protected areas. Biological Conservation. 149(1), 6-14. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2011.08.024

Barlow, J., Parry, L., Gardner, T. A., Ferreira, J., Aragao, L. E., Carmenta, R., Berenguer, E., Vieira, I. C., Souza, C., Cochrane, M. A. 2012. The critical importance of considering fire in REDD+ programs. Biological Conservation. 154, 1-8. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2012.03.034

Barlow, J., Silveira, J. M., Cochrane, M. A. 2010. Fire Scars on Amazonian Trees: Exploring the Cryptic Fire History of the Ilha de Maraca. Biotropica. 42(4), 405-409. DOI: 10.1111/j.1744-7429.2010.00646.x

Barlow, J., Silveira, J. M., Mestre, L. A. M., Andrade, R. B., Camacho D'Andrea, G., Louzada, J., Vaz-de-Mello, F. Z., Numata, I., Lacau, S., Cochrane, M. A. 2012. Wildfires in Bamboo-Dominated Amazonian Forest: Impacts on Above-Ground Biomass and Biodiversity. PLoS ONE. 7(3), e33373. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0033373

Cochrane, M. A. 2009. Fire in the tropics in: Tropical Fire Ecology. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 1-23. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-77381-8_1

Cochrane, M. A., Laurance, W. F. 2008. Synergisms among Fire, Land Use, and Climate Change in the Amazon. AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment. 37(7), 522-527. DOI: 10.1579/0044-7447-37.7.522

Cochrane, M. A., Ryan, K. C. 2009. Fire and fire ecology: Concepts and principles in: Tropical Fire Ecology. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 25-62. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-77381-8_2

de Andrade, R. B., Barlow, J., Louzada, J., Mestre, L., Silveira, J., Vaz-de-Mello, F. Z., Cochrane, M. A. 2014. Biotic congruence in humid tropical forests: A multi-taxa examination of spatial distribution and responses to forest disturbance. Ecological Indicators. 36, 572-581. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2013.09.004

de Andrade, R. B., Barlow, J., Louzada, J., Vaz-de-Mello, F. Z., Silveira, J. M., Cochrane, M. A. 2014. Tropical forest fires and biodiversity: dung beetle community and biomass responses in a northern Brazilian Amazon forest. Journal of Insect Conservation. 18(6), 1097-1104. DOI: 10.1007/s10841-014-9719-4

Kumar, S. S., Roy, D. P., Boschetti, L., Kremens, R. 2011. Exploiting the power law distribution properties of satellite fire radiative power retrievals: A method to estimate fire radiative energy and biomass burned from sparse satellite observations. Journal of Geophysical Research. 116(D19). DOI: 10.1029/2011jd015676

Kumar, S. S., Roy, D. P., Cochrane, M. A., Souza, C. M., Barber, C. P., Boschetti, L. 2014. A quantitative study of the proximity of satellite detected active fires to roads and rivers in the Brazilian tropical moist forest biome. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 23(4), 532. DOI: 10.1071/wf13106

Mestre, L. A. M., Cochrane, M. A., Barlow, J. 2013. Long-term Changes in Bird Communities after Wildfires in the Central Brazilian Amazon. Biotropica. 45(4), 480-488. DOI: 10.1111/btp.12026

Mestre, L.A.M., J. Barlow, G. Thom & M.A. Cochrane. 2009. Burned Forests as a Novel Habitat for the Black-faced Cotinga (Conioptilon mcilhennyi) in the Western Brazilian Amazon. Ornitología Neotropical 20: 467-470. ISSN: 1075-4377

Mestre, L.A.M., J. Rechetelo, J. Barlow and M.A. Cochrane. 2011. Avifaunal inventory of a Southern Amazonian transitional site: the São Luiz” farm, Mato Grosso, Brazil. Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi 6(2): 147-161. ISSN:1981-8114

Numata, I., Cochrane, M. A. 2012. Forest Fragmentation and Its Potential Implications in the Brazilian Amazon between 2001 and 2010. Open Journal of Forestry. 02(04), 265-271. DOI: 10.4236/ojf.2012.24033

Numata, I., Cochrane, M. A., Galvao, L. S. 2011. Analyzing the Impacts of Frequency and Severity of Forest Fire on the Recovery of Disturbed Forest using Landsat Time Series and EO-1 Hyperion in the Southern Brazilian Amazon. Earth Interactions. 15(13), 1-17. DOI: 10.1175/2010ei372.1

Numata, I., Cochrane, M. A., Roberts, D. A., Soares, J. V. 2009. Determining dynamics of spatial and temporal structures of forest edges in South Western Amazonia. Forest Ecology and Management. 258(11), 2547-2555. DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2009.09.011

Numata, I., Cochrane, M. A., Roberts, D. A., Soares, J. V., Souza, C. M., Sales, M. H. 2010. Biomass collapse and carbon emissions from forest fragmentation in the Brazilian Amazon. Journal of Geophysical Research. 115(G3). DOI: 10.1029/2009jg001198

Numata, I., Cochrane, M. A., Souza Jr, C. M., Sales, M. H. 2011. Carbon emissions from deforestation and forest fragmentation in the Brazilian Amazon. Environmental Research Letters. 6(4), 044003. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/6/4/044003

Rudorff, C., Novo, E., Galvao, L. 2006. Spectral Mixture Analysis of Inland Tropical Amazon Floodplain Waters Using EO-1 Hyperion. 2006 IEEE International Symposium on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. DOI: 10.1109/igarss.2006.38

Silveira, J. M., Barlow, J., Andrade, R. B., Louzada, J., Mestre, L. A., Lacau, S., Zanetti, R., Numata, I., Cochrane, M. A. 2012. The responses of leaf litter ant communities to wildfires in the Brazilian Amazon: a multi-region assessment. Biodiversity and Conservation. 22(2), 513-529. DOI: 10.1007/s10531-012-0426-8

Silveira, J. M., Barlow, J., Andrade, R. B., Mestre, L. A. M., Lacau, S., Cochrane, M. A. 2012. Responses of leaf-litter ant communities to tropical forest wildfires vary with season. Journal of Tropical Ecology. 28(5), 515-518. DOI: 10.1017/s026646741200051x

Silveira, J. M., Louzada, J., Barlow, J., Andrade, R., Mestre, L., Solar, R., Lacau, S., Cochrane, M. A. 2015. A Multi-Taxa Assessment of Biodiversity Change After Single and Recurrent Wildfires in a Brazilian Amazon Forest. Biotropica. 48(2), 170-180. DOI: 10.1111/btp.12267

Souza, Jr, C., Siqueira, J., Sales, M., Fonseca, A., Ribeiro, J., Numata, I., Cochrane, M., Barber, C., Roberts, D., Barlow, J. 2013. Ten-Year Landsat Classification of Deforestation and Forest Degradation in the Brazilian Amazon. Remote Sensing. 5(11), 5493-5513. DOI: 10.3390/rs5115493

Toomey, M., Roberts, D. A., Caviglia-Harris, J., Cochrane, M. A., Dewes, C. F., Harris, D., Numata, I., Sales, M. H., Sills, E., Souza, C. M. 2013. Long-term, high-spatial resolution carbon balance monitoring of the Amazonian frontier: Predisturbance and postdisturbance carbon emissions and uptake. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences. 118(2), 400-411. DOI: 10.1002/jgrg.20033

2015 NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Joint Science Workshop Poster(s)

• Filling a critical gap in Indonesia’s national carbon monitoring, reporting, and verification capabilities for supporting REDD+ activities: Incorporating, quantifying and locating fire emissions from within tropical peat-swamp forests   --   (Mark A. Cochrane, Bambang Hero Saharjo, Erianto Indra Putra, Robert J. Yokelson, Andrew P. Vayda, Kevin Christopher Ryan, Christopher Barber)   [abstract]

2011 NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Joint Science Workshop Poster(s)

• Biodiversity implications of forest disturbance and related landscape dynamics in the Brazilian Amazon   --   (Mark Alan Cochrane, Jos Barlow, Carlos Souza, David Roy, Eugenio Arima, Izaya Numata, Christopher Barber, Luiz Mestre, Sanath Sathyachandran, Rafael Andrade, Juliana Silveira)   [abstract]

More details may be found in the following project profile(s):

• NASA Biological Diversity & Ecological Conservation (BDEC) Project Profile