| The Amazon holds the largest tropical rain forest formation in the world but this natural ecosystem has been altered by both anthropogenic and natural disturbances since the 1970s (Davidson et al., 2012). The Brazilian Amazon experienced the highest annual tropical deforestation rates until the mid-2000s when rates began to decline dramatically due to the government?s environmental law enforcement. Conversely, other forest disturbances, such as understory fire, selective logging, and fragmentation (Aragao et al., 2014; Arima et al., 2014) have gained more importance in terms of their impacts on remnant forests. The degree of forest degradation varies as functions of disturbance type, the intensity and frequency of disturbance events, and the time since... |
