spatial pattern of standing timber value across the brazilian amazon空间格局的建筑用材价值在巴西亚马逊河.pdfVIP

Spatial Pattern of Standing Timber Value across the Brazilian Amazon Sadia E. Ahmed*, Robert M. Ewers Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot, Berkshire, United Kingdom Abstract The Amazon is a globally important system, providing a host of ecosystem services from climate regulation to food sources. It is also home to a quarter of all global diversity. Large swathes of forest are removed each year, and many models have attempted to predict the spatial patterns of this forest loss. The spatial patterns of deforestation are determined largely by the patterns of roads that open access to frontier areas and expansion of the road network in the Amazon is largely determined by profit seeking logging activities. Here we present predictions for the spatial distribution of standing value of timber across the Amazon. We show that the patterns of timber value reflect large-scale ecological gradients, determining the spatial distribution of functional traits of trees which are, in turn, correlated with timber values. We expect that understanding the spatial patterns of timber value across the Amazon will aid predictions of logging movements and thus predictions of potential future road developments. These predictions in turn will be of great use in estimating the spatial patterns of deforestation in this globally important biome. Citation: Ahmed SE, Ewers RM (2012) Spatial Pattern of Standing Timber Value across the Brazilian Amazon. PLoS ONE 7(5): e36099. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0036099 Editor: Jerome Chave, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France Received December 20, 2011; Accepted March 29, 2012; Published May 8, 2012 Copyright: 2012 Ahmed, Ewers. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which p