Fire, fragmentation, and windstorms: a recipe for tropical forest degradation

1. Widespread degradation of tropical forests is caused by a variety of disturbances that interact in ways that are not well understood. 2. To explore potential synergies between edge effects, fire and windstorm damage as causes of Amazonian forest degradation, we quantified vegetation responses to a 30-minute high-intensity windstorm that in 2012, swept through a large-scale fire experiment that borders an agricultural field. Our pre- and post-windstorm measurements include tree mortality rates and modes of death, aboveground biomass, and airborne LiDAR-based estimates of tree heights and canopy disturbance (number and size of gaps). The experimental area in the southeastern Amazonia includes three 50-ha plots established in 2004 that were unburned (Control), burned annually (B1yr), or burned at three-year intervals (B3yr). 3. The windstorm caused greater damage to trees (>10 cm DBH) in the burned plots (B1yr: 13±9% of 785 trees; B3yr: 17±13% of 433) than in the Control plot (8±4% ...