Milheiras, Sérgio André Guerreiro; (2019) Linking people and nature in the multifunctional landscapes of Eastern Amazonia. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Preserving the benefits that ecosystems provide to society is increasingly recognised as an essential goal in policy-making. Biodiversity has a role in the provision of many of those benefits. Yet, the ways through which biodiversity and ecosystem services interact are still poorly understood, especially in the tropics. This is particularly relevant in a context of increasing anthropogenic disturbance and biodiversity loss in tropical forests that can have unexpected impacts on ecosystem service provision. In this thesis I explore the links between biodiversity, ecosystem services, and forest management in the forest-rich multifunctional landscapes of Eastern Amazonia in Brazil. I develop a simple method to quantify ecosystem services at large scales, identify spatial associations between them, and explore the impact of land use change on the capacity of forests to provide those services. Agricultural land and forests had higher provision levels. Results also show that in forests this provision varies non-linearly with distance to forest edge. Next, I explore the degree to which local communities perceive the links between biodiversity and ecosystem services and, in turn, if that perception influences their attitudes towards conservation. I find that respondents aware of more relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem services were also more likely to have a positive attitude towards nature conservation. Overall perception of those links was relatively high in the study area. I also provide evidence of how different taxa respond to forest management regimes of widespread occurrence in the region. I find that increased forest use intensity can have negative effects on the communities of trees, dung beetles, and fruit-feeding butterflies. Finally, I measure the simultaneous provision of five ecosystem services along a gradient of forest use intensity. Multifunctionality levels were higher under moderate or low intensity levels associated with higher tree richness. The indirect effect mediated by biodiversity loss was on average at least as severe as the direct effect of forest use intensification on multifunctionality. Overall, this thesis adds new empirical evidence to our understanding of the relationship between people and nature in the Amazonian forest.

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