Understanding the response of species to anthropogenic landscape modification is essential to design effective conservation programs. Recently, insects have been used in empirical studies to evaluate the impact of habitat modification and landscape fragmentation on biological diversity because they are often affected rapidly by changes in land use. In this study, the use of the landscape matrix...

Planting seedlings is a common technique for abandoned pastures restoration in the tropics, supposedly by increasing the seedling recruitment and accelerating succession. In this study we evaluated the role of a young restored forest (one year old) in enhancing seedling establishment from two sources (seed rain and seed bank), in the Atlantic Rainforest region in Southern Brazil. We compared ab...

Our ability to estimate the changes in carbon (C) pools and fluxes due to forest conversion is hampered by a lack of comparative studies. We measured aboveand belowground C pools and soil respiration flux at four forested and four pasture sites in the southern Appalachian Mountains. Aboveand belowground C pools were significantly larger (P < 0.01, t-test) at forested sites relative to pasture s...

As Neotropical forests are increasingly converted to agriculture (especially pastures), little is known about the impacts on microbial biodiversity. To assess such impacts, I compared spore abundance and diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in soils from lowland evergreen forests and pastures in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Species composition, dominance-diversity curves, and Simpson’s ...

Deforestation rates in primary humid tropical forests of the Brazilian Legal Amazon (BLA) have declined significantly since the early 2000s. Brazil's national forest monitoring system provides extensive information for the BLA but lacks independent validation and systematic coverage outside of primary forests. We use a sample-based approach to consistently quantify 2000-2013 tree cover loss in ...

We studied nitrous oxide (N2O) fluxes and soil nitrogen (N) cycling following forest conversion to pasture in the central Amazon near Santarém, Pará, Brazil. Two undisturbed forest sites and 27 pasture sites of 0.5 to 60 years were sampled once each during wet and dry seasons. In addition to soil-atmosphere fluxes of N2O we measured 27 soil chemical, soil microbiological and soil physical varia...

The proliferation of disease-vector mosquitoes has been attributed to the effects of land-use change. We investigated the relationship between land use, macroinvertebrate communities, and water chemistry in water-filled containers in native forest, pasture land, and urban land at two locations (Waikanae and Paraparaumu) in the Kapiti region, New Zealand. Larvae of the endemic Culex pervigilans ...

Clearing tropical forests of the Amazon Basin for pasture alters rates of soil nitrogen cycling. Previous studies have shown that rates of soil net N mineralization and net nitri®cation are lower in established pastures than in forests. We compared soil inorganic N concentrations, rates of net and gross mineralization and net and gross nitri®cation in a chronosequence and an experimental slash-...

Tropical pastures present multiple barriers to tree regeneration and restoration. Relict trees serve as "regeneration foci" because they ameliorate the soil microclimate and serve as safe spots for dispersers. Here, we describe another mechanism by which remnant trees may facilitate pasture regeneration: the presence of seed banks in the canopy soil that accumulates from decomposing epiphytes w...