The magnitude and extent of edge effects on vascular epiphytes across the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

ABSTRACT: Edge effects are ubiquitous landscape processes influencing over 70% of forest cover worldwide. However, little is known about how edge effects influence the vertical stratification of communities in forest fragments. We combined a spatially implicit and a spatially explicit approach to quantify the magnitude and extent of edge effects on canopy and understorey epiphytic plants in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Within the human-modified landscape, species richness, species abundance and community composition remained practically unchanged along the interior-edge gradient, pointing to severe biotic homogenisation at all strata. This is because the extent of edge effects reached at least 500 m, potentially leaving just 0.24% of the studied landscape unaffected by edges. We extrapolated our f

SUBMITTER: Parra-Sanchez E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7606527 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature