Rapid land-use change and its impacts on tropical biodiversity

Abstract

Rates of forest conversion are extremely high in most tropical regions and these changes are known to have important impacts on biotas and ecosystems. I summarize available information on responses of wildlife and plant communities to habitat fragmentation, selective logging, surface fires, and hunting, which are four of the most widespread types of tropical land-use change. These changes alter forest ecosystems in complex ways and have varying impacts on different animal and plant species. In most human-dominated landscapes, forests are subjected to not one change but to two or more simultaneous alterations, the effects of which can be particularly destructive to tropical biotas. I illustrate this concept by describing the synergistic interactions between habitat fragmentation and surface fires, and between logging, fires, and hunting. © 2004 by the American Geophysical Union.