Critical transitions in the Amazon forest system.

ABSTRACT: The possibility that the Amazon forest system could soon reach a tipping point, inducing large-scale collapse, has raised global concern^1-3. For 65 million years, Amazonian forests remained relatively resilient to climatic variability. Now, the region is increasingly exposed to unprecedented stress from warming temperatures, extreme droughts, deforestation and fires, even in central and remote parts of the system¹. Long existing feedbacks between the forest and environmental conditions are being replaced by novel feedbacks that modify ecosystem resilience, increasing the risk of critical transition. Here we analyse existing evidence for five major drivers of water stress on Amazonian forests, as well as potential critical thresholds of those drivers that, if crossed,

SUBMITTER: Flores BM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10866695 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature