Journal ArticleDOI
Deforestation and Reforestation of Latin America and the Caribbean (2001–2010)
T. Mitchell Aide,Matthew L. Clark,H. Ricardo Grau,David López-Carr,Marc A. Levy,Daniel J. Redo,Martha Bonilla-Moheno,George Riner,María José Andrade-Núñez,Maria Muñiz +9 more
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TLDR
In this paper, the authors presented a wall-to-wall, annual maps of change in woody vegetation and other land-cover classes between 2001 and 2010 for each of the 16,050 municipalities in Latin American and the Caribbean region (LAC).Abstract:
Forest cover change directly affects biodiversity, the global carbon budget, and ecosystem function. Within Latin American and the Caribbean region (LAC), many studies have documented extensive deforestation, but there are also many local studies reporting forest recovery. These contrasting dynamics have been largely attributed to demographic and socio-economic change. For example, local population change due to migration can stimulate forest recovery, while the increasing global demand for food can drive agriculture expansion. However, as no analysis has simultaneously evaluated deforestation and reforestation from the municipal to continental scale, we lack a comprehensive assessment of the spatial distribution of these processes. We overcame this limitation by producing wall-to-wall, annual maps of change in woody vegetation and other land-cover classes between 2001 and 2010 for each of the 16,050 municipalities in LAC, and we used nonparametric Random Forest regression analyses to determine which environmental or population variables best explained the variation in woody vegetation change. Woody vegetation change was dominated by deforestation (541,835 km 2 ), particularly in the moist forest, dry forest, and savannas/shrublands biomes in South America. Extensive areas also recovered woody vegetation (+362,430 km 2 ), particularly in regions too dry or too steep for modern agriculture. Deforestation in moist forests tended to occur in lowland areas with low population density, but woody cover change was not related to municipality-scale population change. These results emphasize the importance of quantitating deforestation and reforestation at multiple spatial scales and linking these changes with global drivers such as the global demand for food.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
The Effect of Anthropization on Sarcophagidae (Diptera: Calyptratae) Community Structure: An Assessment on Different Types of Habitats in the Humid Chaco Ecoregion of Argentina
Matias Ignacio Dufek,Matias Ignacio Dufek,Dario Daniel Larrea,Dario Daniel Larrea,Miryam P. Damborsky,Pablo Ricardo Mulieri +5 more
TL;DR: The main conclusion of this research is that flesh fly community structure is greatly affected by anthropization and habitat type, and this would be related to canopy cover and microclimate conditions of each environment.
Journal ArticleDOI
Ongoing forest disturbance in Guatemala's protected areas
TL;DR: The protected areas of Guatemala are more affected by disturbance than previously realized, and the total amount of forest disturbance can be significantly underestimated if degradation and natural disturbance are not taken into account.
Journal ArticleDOI
Empirically validating a dense woody regrowth ‘problem’ and thinning ‘solution’ for understory vegetation
Christopher S. Jones,David H. Duncan,David H. Duncan,Libby Rumpff,Freya Thomas,William K. Morris,Peter A. Vesk +6 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored the effect of density on understory vegetation in eucalypt woodlands and forests of central Victoria, Australia and found that high stem density can adversely affect stand structure, understory composition, and habitat for dependent fauna.
Journal ArticleDOI
Divergent rates of change between tree cover types in a tropical pastoral region
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed tree cover change in Southwestern Panama to quantify: (1) patterns of change from 1998 to 2014, (2) differences in rates of change between forest and non-forest classes, and (3) the relative importance of social-ecological predictors of tree cover changes between classes.
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Agricultural production and bird conservation in complex landscapes of the dry Chaco
TL;DR: Macchi, Leandro as discussed by the authors, and Macchi et al. as discussed by the authors presented a paper on the use of the Alexander von Humboldt University (AVHU) as a training site for the University of Tucuman (U Tucuman).
References
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Random Forests
TL;DR: Internal estimates monitor error, strength, and correlation and these are used to show the response to increasing the number of features used in the forest, and are also applicable to regression.
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Overview of the radiometric and biophysical performance of the MODIS vegetation indices
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluated the performance and validity of the MODIS vegetation indices (VI), the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and enhanced vegetation index(EVI), produced at 1-km and 500-m resolutions and 16-day compositing periods.
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Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World: A New Map of Life on Earth
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Random forest: a classification and regression tool for compound classification and QSAR modeling.
Vladimir Svetnik,Andy Liaw,Christopher Tong,J. Christopher Culberson,Robert P. Sheridan,Bradley P. Feuston +5 more
TL;DR: It is the combination of relatively high prediction accuracy and its collection of desired features that makes Random Forest uniquely suited for modeling in cheminformatics.
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Dynamics of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in Tropical Regions
TL;DR: In this article, the authors highlight the complexity of land-use/cover change and propose a framework for a more general understanding of the issue, with emphasis on tropical regions, and argue that a systematic analysis of local-scale land use change studies, conducted over a range of timescales, helps to uncover general principles that provide an explanation and prediction of new land use changes.