Sparing old-growth maximises conservation outcomes within selectively logged Amazonian rainforest

Cerullo, Gianluca, França, Filipe, Finch, Tom, Erm, Philip, Griffiths, Hannah, Louzada, Julio, Bousfield, Chris G., Massam, Mike R., Peres, Carlos A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1588-8765, Barlow, Jos, Green, Rhys E., Edwards, David P. and Balmford, Andrew (2023) Sparing old-growth maximises conservation outcomes within selectively logged Amazonian rainforest. Biological Conservation, 282. ISSN 0006-3207

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Abstract

Timber extraction threatens a vast area of tropical ecosystems, making it vital to design productive harvesting operations that limit biodiversity declines. Contrasting management options span a continuum from less-intensive, land-sharing logging applied over a larger area to land-sparing operations that combine intensive harvesting with the preservation of old-growth forest. Combining company-reported extraction rates with dung beetle surveys along an Amazonian logging gradient, we explore how individual species' abundances, geometric mean population sizes, functional diversity, and trait characteristics vary across simulated logging concessions and production targets. We substantially extend previous studies by evaluating 8000 mixed-harvesting scenarios and by assessing the profitability of contrasting practices. Simply maximising old-growth protection delivers the highest species' abundances and population sizes for species negatively affected by logging. Maximising old-growth also supports communities with a functional trait dissimilarity (FDis, RaoQ) and functional structure of nesting guilds, biomass, pronotum volume, front leg area, and front:back leg ratio traits that closely resembles old-growth forest. Functional evenness (FEve), richness (FRic), and divergence (FDiv) did not vary across logging strategies. Some 3 % of mixed approaches outperform extreme sparing (which maximises old-growth retention through intensive logging) but still involve substantial sparing, enabled by intensified logging elsewhere. However more-extensive business-as-usual harvesting is up to 90 % more profitable than extreme sparing, suggesting active policy mechanisms, standards, or regulations would be needed to make spatially-concentrated logging operations (which benefit biodiversity) more commercially attractive. Old-growth sparing appears key to limiting biodiversity declines within tropical timber concessions, but would require payments to compensate for reduced profits.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Funding Information: GRC was funded through the Peter Scott Studentship and FF by BNP Paribas. The field component of this research was supported by MCTI / CNPq / FAPs (N°. 34/2012) CNPq-PELD site 23 (403811/2012-0) grants.
Uncontrolled Keywords: biodiversity,forest management,redd+,selective logging,ecology, evolution, behavior and systematics,nature and landscape conservation,sdg 15 - life on land ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1100/1105
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science
Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Biology
Related URLs:
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 18 Apr 2023 12:31
Last Modified: 12 Jun 2023 09:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/91836
DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110065

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