New spaceborne-lidar work presented at ATBC 2026 shows Amazonian forests in Acre remain measurably shorter, simpler and lower in biomass for at least 40 years after wildfire, recovering to only about 90% of unburned forest.
Competition among trees is an important driver of community structure and dynamics in tropical forests. Neighboring trees may impact an individual tree’s growth rate and probability of mortality, but large-scale geographic and environmental variation in these competitive effects has yet to be evaluated across the tropical forest biome.
There has been a large increase in deforestation and wildfire in Amazonia over recent years. Fire in tropical forests increases tree mortality, degrades forest structure, and reduces carbon stocks (Figure 1). Remote sensing now permits a rapid and accurate assessment of the location and extent of fires. On the ground and in forests, however, there […]