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The disappearing Dry Chaco, one of the last dry forest systems on earth

Landscape Ecology volume 36, pages 2997–3012 (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

Context

The Dry Chaco spans more than 87 million hectares across Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay. This unique forest system has experienced extensive loss and fragmentation due to land-use change, with different land-use histories in the three countries. This forest loss has altered landscape connectivity for the Dry Chaco’s associated biota.

Objectives

We compared patterns of deforestation-induced fragmentation and concomitant changes in structural landscape connectivity between 2000 and 2019 in the three countries to identify consistent patterns that might facilitate biome-wide conservation.

Methods

We quantified forest cover in the Dry Chaco of Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay for the years 2000 and 2019 at 30 m resolution. We analyzed structural connectivity at three scales. Then, we identified and visualized the most important stepping stones per country per year.

Results

Between 2000 and 2019, the overall extent of Dry Chaco forest cover decreased by 20.2% (9.5 million ha). All three counties experienced substantial reductions, with Paraguay undergoing the greatest loss and fragmentation relative to 2000. Most of the overall network metrics decreased from 2000 to 2019 for Paraguay and Bolivia, but Argentina experienced increased coalescence distance and average nodal connectance. Dispersal-level metrics showed clustering threshold distances between 1000 and 2000 m for each country in both years.

Conclusions

The large number of forest fragments and distances between them suggest that some mammals characteristic of the biome may be experiencing negative impacts from this fragmentation. Contemporary and future challenges of uncoordinated national conservation and management policies, land speculation, and increased human infrastructure will accelerate the rate of deforestation.

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Data availability

All data used is either available as supporting materials or will be made available upon request. We would like to include our forest shapefiles we developed as part of our supporting material when the article is accepted.

Code availability

R code is available from the corresponding author.

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Funding

Partial financial support to ND came from the Grainer Bioinformatics Center at The Field Museum.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Chicago State University, Chicago, IL, 60628, USA

    Noé U. de la Sancha

  2. Negaunee Integrative Research Center, The Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, 60605, USA

    Noé U. de la Sancha

  3. Department of Biology and Program in Environmental Studies and Sciences, Rhodes College, Memphis, TN, 38112, USA

    Sarah A. Boyle

  4. Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, 79409-3131, USA

    Nancy E. McIntyre

  5. Division of Vertebrate Zoology, Houston Museum of Natural Science, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Daniel M. Brooks

  6. Guyra Paraguay / CONACYT, Carlos Boveda, Viñas Cue, Asunción, Paraguay

    Alberto Yanosky

  7. Department of Biology, College of Science, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

    Ericka Cuellar Soto

  8. Centro para el Desarrollo de la Investigación Científica (CEDIC), Asunción, Paraguay

    Fatima Mereles

  9. Proyecto Quimilero, Roosevelt 4344, CP1430, CABA, Argentina

    Micaela Camino

  10. EDGE of Existence - Zoological Society of London, Regent´s Park, London, UK

    Micaela Camino

  11. Department of Natural Resources Management and Natural Science Research Laboratory, Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, 79409, USA

    Richard D. Stevens

Authors
  1. Noé U. de la Sancha
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  2. Sarah A. Boyle
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Conceptualization: NUdlS, SAB, NEM, DMB, AY, ECS, FM, MC, RDS; Data curation: NUdlS, SAB, Formal analysis: NUdlS, SAB, Funding acquisition: NUdlS, SAB; Methodology: NUdlS, SAB, NEM; Project administration: NUdlS, SAB, NEM; Validation: NUdlS, SAB, NEM; Visualization: NUdlS, SAB; Writing—original draft: NUdlS, SAB, NEM, DMB, AY, ECS, FM, MC, RDS; Writing—review and editing: NUdlS, SAB, NEM, DMB, RDS. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Noé U. de la Sancha.

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de la Sancha, N.U., Boyle, S.A., McIntyre, N.E. et al. The disappearing Dry Chaco, one of the last dry forest systems on earth. Landscape Ecol 36, 2997–3012 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-021-01291-x

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Keywords

  • Argentina
  • Bolivia
  • Deforestation
  • Graph theory
  • Paraguay
  • Structural connectivity