Our team contributed to a newly published open-access article in Global Change Biology: “Quantifying the Spatial Footprint of Agriculture-Driven Edge Effects in a Global Deforestation Hotspot” . The study quantifies how far agricultural edge effects penetrate into remaining tropical dry forests in the Argentine Dry Chaco, and how these impacts differ by post-deforestation land use and time since clearing. Using satellite-based forest structure indicators and Bayesian hierarchical models, the authors find that edge effects can extend beyond 700 m into adjacent forests, with reductions of up to ~40% in structural parameters. Region-wide projections indicate that a substantial share of remaining forests shows biomass deficits consistent with degradation near agricultural frontiers, and that these effects can intensify over decades after initial deforestation.

Jun.-Prof. Dr. María Piquer-Rodríguez contributed to this work as part of the author team.