Imperial College London
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DrCristinaBanks-Leite

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Life Sciences (Silwood Park)

Reader in Conservation Ecology
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 2289c.banks

 
 
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Location

 

2.2MunroSilwood Park

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Parra-Sanchez:2020:10.1038/s41598-020-75970-1,
author = {Parra-Sanchez, E and Banks-Leite, C},
doi = {10.1038/s41598-020-75970-1},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
pages = {1--11},
title = {The magnitude and extent of edge effects on vascular epiphytes across the Brazilian Atlantic Forest},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75970-1},
volume = {10},
year = {2020}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Edge effects are ubiquitous landscape processes influencing over 70% of forest cover worldwide. However, little is known about how edge effects influence the vertical stratification of communities in forest fragments. We combined a spatially implicit and a spatially explicit approach to quantify the magnitude and extent of edge effects on canopy and understorey epiphytic plants in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Within the human-modified landscape, species richness, species abundance and community composition remained practically unchanged along the interior-edge gradient, pointing to severe biotic homogenisation at all strata. This is because the extent of edge effects reached at least 500 m, potentially leaving just 0.24% of the studied landscape unaffected by edges. We extrapolated our findings to the entire Atlantic Forest and found that just 19.4% of the total existing area is likely unaffected by edge effects and provide suitable habitat conditions for forest-dependent epiphytes. Our results suggest that the resources provided by the current forest cover might be insufficient to support the future of epiphyte communities. Preserving large continuous ‘intact’ forests is probably the only effective conservation strategy for vascular epiphytes.
AU  - Parra-Sanchez,E
AU  - Banks-Leite,C
DO  - 10.1038/s41598-020-75970-1
EP  - 11
PY  - 2020///
SN  - 2045-2322
SP  - 1
TI  - The magnitude and extent of edge effects on vascular epiphytes across the Brazilian Atlantic Forest
T2  - Scientific Reports
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75970-1
UR  - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75970-1
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/83386
VL  - 10
ER  -
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