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The Amazon basin in transition

Nature volume 481, pages 321–328 (2012)Cite this article

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A Corrigendum to this article was published on 07 March 2012

Abstract

Agricultural expansion and climate variability have become important agents of disturbance in the Amazon basin. Recent studies have demonstrated considerable resilience of Amazonian forests to moderate annual drought, but they also show that interactions between deforestation, fire and drought potentially lead to losses of carbon storage and changes in regional precipitation patterns and river discharge. Although the basin-wide impacts of land use and drought may not yet surpass the magnitude of natural variability of hydrologic and biogeochemical cycles, there are some signs of a transition to a disturbance-dominated regime. These signs include changing energy and water cycles in the southern and eastern portions of the Amazon basin.

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Figure 1: Interactions between global climate, land use, fire, hydrology, ecology and human dimensions.
Figure 2: Climatic gradient across the Amazon basin.
Figure 3: Decadal and seasonal variation in flood area.
Figure 4: The Amazon basin today and future fire risks.
Figure 5: Estimates of Amazonian greenhouse-gas emissions.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT), the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and the National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA) for designing, leading and managing the LBA project. We also thank D. Wickland (NASA) for more than a decade of leadership and support for the LBA-Eco project component of LBA. We thank the LBA-Eco team members who contributed to discussions on an early draft of this manuscript at a workshop in Foz do Iguaçu in August 2010, and S. Saleska for comments on the manuscript. We thank P. Lefebvre and W. Kingerlee for assistance with figure and manuscript preparation. Development of this manuscript was supported by NASA grants NNX08AF63A and NNX11AF20G.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Woods Hole Research Center, 149 Woods Hole Road, Falmouth, 02540-1644, Massachusetts, USA

    Eric A. Davidson, Jennifer K. Balch, I. Foster Brown & Michael T. Coe

  2. Embrapa Amazônia Oriental, Travessa Dr. Enéas Pinheiro, s/n, Marco, Caixa Postal 48, Belém, Pará 66095-100, Brazil ,

    Alessandro C. de Araújo

  3. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA), Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA), Avenida André Araújo, 2936, Manaus, Amazonas, 69060-001, Brazil ,

    Alessandro C. de Araújo

  4. Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, Rua do Matão, Travessa R, 187, São Paulo, SP 05508-090, Brazil ,

    Paulo Artaxo

  5. National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, 735 State Street, Suite 300, Santa Barbara, California 93101, USA ,

    Jennifer K. Balch

  6. Universidade Federal do Acre, Mestrado em Ecologia e Manejo de Recursos Naturais, Parque Zoobotânico, Distrito Industrial, Rio Branco, AC 69915-900, Brazil ,

    I. Foster Brown

  7. Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Campus Universitário Darcy Ribeiro, Asa Norte, Brasília, Distrito Federal 70910-900, Brazil,

    Mercedes M. C. Bustamante

  8. Department of Ecology, Columbia University, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, 1200 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, New York 10027, USA,

    Ruth S. DeFries

  9. USDA Forest Service, International Institute of Tropical Forestry, Jardín Botánico Sur, 1201 Calle Ceiba, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00926-1119, USA ,

    Michael Keller

  10. Embrapa Monitoramento por Satélite, Avenida Soldado Passarinho, 303, Fazenda Chapadão, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil ,

    Michael Keller

  11. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 20 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA,

    Marcos Longo, J. William Munger & Steven C. Wofsy

  12. University of Maryland, Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, 5825 University Research Court Suite 4001, College Park, Maryland 20740, USA ,

    Wilfrid Schroeder

  13. Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Centro de Sensoriamento Remoto, Avenida Antônio Carlos 6627, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais 31270-900, Brazil ,

    Britaldo S. Soares-Filho

  14. Imazon, Centro de Geotecnologia do Imazon, Rua Domingos Marreiros 2020, Belém, Pará 66060-160, Brazil ,

    Carlos M. Souza

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  1. Eric A. Davidson
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Contributions

E.A.D. wrote an initial rough draft and edited the final draft of the paper. M.K. and M.T.C. contributed significant final edits. All of the other co-authors participated in an LBA-Eco team meeting at Foz do Iguaçu on August, 13, 2010, where this manuscript was designed, and either were co-leaders of breakout groups or made significant subsequent contributions of subsections of text or figures. All co-authors also provided edits throughout.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eric A. Davidson.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Davidson, E., de Araújo, A., Artaxo, P. et al. The Amazon basin in transition. Nature 481, 321–328 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10717

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