Forest Fragmentation and Fires in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon–Maranhão State, Brazil

Tropical forests provide essential environmental services to human well-being. In the world, Brazil has largest continuous area of these forests. However, in state Maranhão, eastern Amazon, only 24% original forest cover remains. We integrated and analyzed active fires, burned area, land use cover, rainfall, surface temperature datasets understand fragmentation fire dynamics from a remote sensing approach. found that Maranhão Amazon region had net reduction 31,302 km2 between 1985 2017, with 63% losses occurring core areas. Forest edges extent was reduced by 38%, while size isolated patches increased 239%. fires impacted, on average, around 1031 ± 695 year−1 2003 equivalent 60% total this period. Our results demonstrated is an important factor controlling temporal spatial variability region. Thus, both directly indirectly, can compromise biodiversity carbon stocks