title: Toward an integrated monitoring framework to assess the effects of tropical forest degradation and recovery on carbon stocks and biodiversity.
abstract: Tropical forests harbor a significant portion of global biodiversity and are a critical component of the climate system. Reducing deforestation and forest degradation contributes to global climate-change mitigation efforts, yet emissions and removals from forest dynamics are still poorly quantified. We reviewed the main challenges to estimate changes in carbon stocks and biodiversity due to degradation and recovery of tropical forests, focusing on three main areas: (1) the combination of field surveys and remote sensing; (2) evaluation of biodiversity and carbon values under a unified strategy; and (3) research efforts needed to understand and quantify forest degradation and recovery. The improvement of models and estimates of changes of forest carbon can foster process-oriented monitoring of forest dynamics, including different variables and using spatially explicit algorithms that account for regional and local differences, such as variation in climate, soil, nutrient content, topography, biodiversity, disturbance history, recovery pathways, and socioeconomic factors. Generating the data for these models requires affordable large-scale remote-sensing tools associated with a robust network of field plots that can generate spatially explicit information on a range of variables through time. By combining ecosystem models, multiscale remote sensing, and networks of field plots, we will be able to evaluate forest degradation and recovery and their interactions with biodiversity and carbon cycling. Improving monitoring strategies will allow a better understanding of the role of forest dynamics in climate-change mitigation, adaptation, and carbon cycle feedbacks, thereby reducing uncertainties in models of the key processes in the carbon cycle, including their impacts on biodiversity, which are fundamental to support forest governance policies, such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology, University of Brasília, Brasília, DF, CEP 70910900, Brazil.
authors.forename: Mercedes M C
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Bustamante
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology, University of Brasília, Brasília, DF, CEP 70910900, Brazil.
authors.forename: Iris
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Roitman
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR, 00931-3360, Puerto Rico.
authors.forename: T Mitchell
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Aide
authors.affiliation: Amazon Environmental Research Institute - IPAM, SHIN CA5 Bl J2 Sala 309, Brasilia, DF, Brazil.
authors.forename: Ane
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alencar
authors.affiliation: National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters - CEMADEN, Parque Tecnológico de São José dos Campos, Estrada Doutor Altino Bondensan, 500, São José dos Campos, SP, 12247-016, Brazil.|Environmental Change Institute, ECI, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK.|Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, São José dos Campos, SP, 12247-016, Brazil.
authors.forename: Liana O
authors.initials: LO
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.affiliation: Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, São José dos Campos, SP, 12247-016, Brazil.
authors.forename: Luiz
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Aragão
authors.affiliation: Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Gregory P
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Asner
authors.affiliation: Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, UK.|Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi, C.P. 399, Belém, Pará, CEP 66040170, Brasil.
authors.forename: Jos
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Barlow
authors.affiliation: Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, UK.
authors.forename: Erika
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8157-8792
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Berenguer
authors.affiliation: Geography Department, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chambers
authors.affiliation: Department of Agricultural Engineering, Federal University of Viçosa, Viçosa, MG, 36570-900, Brazil.
authors.forename: Marcos H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Costa
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fanin
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Estudos Sócio-Ambientais - IESA, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia, Brazil.
authors.forename: Laerte G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Ferreira
authors.affiliation: Embrapa Amazonia Oriental, C. Postal 48 66017-970, Belem, PA, Brazil.
authors.forename: Joice
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ferreira
authors.affiliation: USDA Forest Service, International Institute of Tropical Forestry, San Juan, Puerto Rico.|EMBRAPA Monitoramento por Satélite, Campinas, São Paulo, Brasil.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Keller
authors.affiliation: Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA), Caixa Postal 2223, Manaus, AM, 69067-971, Brazil.
authors.forename: William E
authors.initials: WE
authors.lastname: Magnusson
authors.affiliation: School of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography, College of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2UW, UK.
authors.forename: Lucia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Morales-Barquero
authors.affiliation: Biospheric Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 618, Greenbelt, MD, 20771, USA.
authors.forename: Douglas
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Morton
authors.affiliation: Earth System Science Centre (CCST), National Institute for Space Research (INPE), Av dos Astronautas, 1758, São José dos Campos, SP, 12227-010, Brazil.
authors.forename: Jean P H B
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Ometto
authors.affiliation: Earth System Research Center, Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, UNH, Norwich, UK.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Palace
authors.affiliation: School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR47TJ, UK.
authors.forename: Carlos A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Peres
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology, University of Brasília, Brasília, DF, CEP 70910900, Brazil.
authors.forename: Divino
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Silvério
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Trumbore
authors.affiliation: Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi, C.P. 399, Belém, Pará, CEP 66040170, Brasil.
authors.forename: Ima C G
authors.initials: IC
authors.lastname: Vieira
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D002244:Carbon; D057486:Carbon Cycle; D057231:Climate Change; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D017753:Ecosystem; D016468:Forestry / Q000379:methods; D065928:Forests; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D014329:Tropical Climate
chemical_list: D002244:Carbon
keywords: carbon emissions; ecosystem modeling; field inventories; forest dynamics; remote sensing