Defaunation affects carbon storage in tropical forests

Bello, Carolina, Galetti, Mauro, Pizo, Marco A, Magnago, Luiz Fernando S, Rocha, Mariana F, Lima, Renato A F, Peres, Carlos A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1588-8765, Ovaskainen, Otso and Jordano, Pedro (2015) Defaunation affects carbon storage in tropical forests. Science Advances, 1 (11). ISSN 2375-2548

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Abstract

Carbon storage is widely acknowledged as one of the most valuable forest ecosystem services. Deforestation, logging, fragmentation, fire, and climate change have significant effects on tropical carbon stocks; however, an elusive and yet undetected decrease in carbon storage may be due to defaunation of large seed dispersers. Many large tropical trees with sizeable contributions to carbon stock rely on large vertebrates for seed dispersal and regeneration, however many of these frugivores are threatened by hunting, illegal trade, and habitat loss. We used a large data set on tree species composition and abundance, seed, fruit, and carbon-related traits, and plant-animal interactions to estimate the loss of carbon storage capacity of tropical forests in defaunated scenarios. By simulating the local extinction of trees that depend on large frugivores in 31 Atlantic Forest communities, we found that defaunation has the potential to significantly erode carbon storage even when only a small proportion of large-seeded trees are extirpated. Although intergovernmental policies to reduce carbon emissions and reforestation programs have been mostly focused on deforestation, our results demonstrate that defaunation, and the loss of key ecological interactions, also poses a serious risk for the maintenance of tropical forest carbon storage.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	2015 © The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/climate_action
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Biology Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Resources, Sustainability and Governance (former - to 2018)
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	09 Feb 2016 13:00
Last Modified:	20 Mar 2023 14:40
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/57010
DOI:	10.1126/sciadv.1501105

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