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Ecology

The forest fragment classic

Nature volume 393, pages 23–24 (1998)Cite this article

Twenty years ago, Thomas Lovejoy from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC engineered a unique ecological experiment from a chance alignment of human demography, science and politics. A rapid influx of people into one of the planet's most sparsely populated areas — the Amazon — was resulting in the clearance of rainforest at unprecedented rates. Complete deforestation would eliminate forest-dependent species. But, in practice, isolated forest fragments of various sizes would probably remain, and the uncut forest would have convoluted edges.

*Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, Five-Year Review, Manaus, Brazil, 15-18 March 1998.

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Figure 1: Forest clearings in the Amazon, in an area north of Manaus, Brazil.

Notes

  1. *Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, Five-Year Review, Manaus, Brazil, 15-18 March 1998.

References

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  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Dabney Hall, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 37996, Tennessee, USA

    Stuart L. Pimm

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  1. Stuart L. Pimm
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Pimm, S. The forest fragment classic. Nature 393, 23–24 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/29892

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