A social-ecological approach to identify and quantify biodiversity tipping points in South America?s seasonal dry ecosystems

THONICKE, K.; GASPARRI, I.; SEGHEZZO, LUCAS; DE LA VEGA- LEINERT, A.C.

BIOGEOSCIENCES

COPERNICUS PUBLICATIONS

Lugar: Gottingen; Año: 2019

1726-4170

Tropical dry forests and savannas harbour unique biodiversity and provide critical ecosystem services (ES), yet they are under severe pressure globally. We need to improve our understanding of how and when this pressure provokes tipping points in biodiversity and the associated social-ecological systems. We propose an approach to investigate how drivers leading to natural vegetation decline trigger biodiversity tipping and illustrate it using the example of the Dry 45 Diagonal in South America, an understudied deforestation frontier.