Characterizing the vertical structure of forests in the Brazilian Amazon
| Authors: | Denis Valle, Leo Haneda, Ismael Verrastro Brack, Jean Ometto, Ovidiu Csillik, Marcos Longo, Michael Keller, Danilo Almeida |
| Year: | 2025 |
| Type: | Scientific Journal |
| Station: | International Institute of Tropical Forestry |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02976-w |
| Source: | Communications Earth & Environment |
Abstract
Little is known about the structure of tropical forests despite its critical role in the provisioning of ecosystem services. Here we assess the vertical structure of forests in the Brazilian Amazon with a large-scale airborne LiDAR dataset. We show that fire has greater impact in the lowest forest strata, differently from selective logging and windthrow. We also find that secondary forests quickly recover or even exceed reference areas at the 1-10m height stratum but that full recovery for the 20-30m height stratum has not been achieved even after 35 years. Our modeling results suggest that proximity to roads, elevation, precipitation, soil pH, and proportion of sand in the soil are the most important predictors of forest structure. Finally, we identify 5 forest structural types (FSTs) and use them to visualize the spatial distribution of forest structure. This study provides important information for forest monitoring, management, and conservation.