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Redefining the Cerrado–Amazonia transition: implications for conservation

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Abstract

Understanding the nature and extent of ecosystem boundaries has important implications for the management and conservation of biodiversity. However, characterizing and establishing such boundary limits has been a persistent challenge worldwide. The Cerrado–Amazonia transition (CAT) in Brazil is the world’s largest savanna-forest transition. However, the CAT is represented in official maps used by Brazilian governmental agencies as a simple line separating the two biomes. Here, we demonstrate that the CAT is in fact broad, complex and interdigitating and that its traditional linear representation is not adequate for recognizing and conserving biodiversity in this region. Over the 30 years of our analysis, the CAT suffered more deforestation than the forests and savannas in each individual biomes (Amazonia and Cerrado). The complexity of tropical savanna-forest boundaries has been misunderstood and misrepresented by current maps, severely threatening the complex CAT biota. As a consequence, vegetation losses have reached levels close to collapse in areas of intense human activity.

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Acknowledgements

We thank CAPES for the MSc scholarship to the first author and the National Council of Science and Technology of Brazil (CNPq) for the financial funding of the project PPBIO 457602/2012-0 (Rede Biota do Cerrado) and productivity grants to BH Marimon, BS Marimon and GR Colli. GRC thanks Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Conselho Nacional do Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Fundação de Apoio à Pesquisa do Distrito Federal (FAPDF), and the Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER) program for financial support.

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Correspondence to Ben Hur Marimon-Junior.

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Communicated by Guarino Rinaldi Colli.

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10531_2019_1720_MOESM1_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 1 (TIFF 774 kb). Appendix Fig. A1 Filtered using a 5 km2 grid size for the reclassification and smoothing tools used as the base of the manually refined ecotone complex

10531_2019_1720_MOESM2_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 2 (TIFF 801 kb). Appendix Fig. A2 Result of the smoothing used as the base for the manually refined ecotone complex

10531_2019_1720_MOESM3_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 3 (TIFF 6593 kb). Appendix Fig. A3 Cerrado–Amazonia limit defined by considering the types of vegetation occurring in this region. The dividing line between biomes defined in this study (in blue) clearly does not match the line previously defined by the IBGE’s official mapping (in black)

10531_2019_1720_MOESM4_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 4 (TIFF 1748 kb). Appendix Fig. A4 Scheme showing events that may potentially lead to encroachment or retraction of forests or savannas, contributing to the floristic complexity of the Cerrado–Amazonia transition in Brazil

10531_2019_1720_MOESM5_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 5 (TIFF 1811 kb). Appendix Fig. A5 Land cover classes and protected areas. Indigenous Lands and Conservation Units, accounting for 16.7% of the landscape in the Cerrado–Amazonia transition in Brazil in 2014

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Marques, E.Q., Marimon-Junior, B.H., Marimon, B.S. et al. Redefining the Cerrado–Amazonia transition: implications for conservation. Biodivers Conserv 29, 1501–1517 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-019-01720-z

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