Resilience and alternative stable states of tropical forest landscapes under shifting cultivation regimes

P Magnuszewski; K Ostasiewicz; Robin L Chazdon; C Salk; M Pajak; J Sendzimir; K Andersson

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0137497

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Resilience and alternative stable states of tropical forest landscapes under shifting cultivation regimes

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Resilience and alternative stable states of tropical forest landscapes under shifting cultivation regimes

P Magnuszewski, K Ostasiewicz, Robin L Chazdon, C Salk, M Pajak, J Sendzimir and K Andersson

PLoS One, Vol.10(9), e0137497

2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137497

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Abstract

human

landscape

model

productivity

system analysis

tropical rain forest

Shifting cultivation is a traditional agricultural practice in most tropical regions of the world and has the potential to provide for human livelihoods while hosting substantial biodiversity. Little is known about the resilience of shifting cultivation to increasing agricultural demands on the landscape or to unexpected disturbances. To investigate these issues, we develop a simple social-ecological model and implement it with literature-derived ecological parameters for six shifting cultivation landscapes from three continents. Analyzing the model with the tools of dynamical systems analysis, we show that such landscapes exhibit two stable states, one characterized by high forest cover and agricultural productivity, and another with much lower values of these traits. For some combinations of agricultural pressure and ecological parameters both of these states can potentially exist, and the actual state of the forest depends critically on its historic state. In many cases, the landscapes' 'ecological resilience', or amount of forest that could be destroyed without shifting out of the forested stability domain, declined substantially at lower levels of agricultural pressure than would lead to maximum productivity. A measure of 'engineering resilience', the recovery time from standardized disturbances, was independent of ecological resilience. These findings suggest that maximization of short-term agricultural output may have counterproductive impacts on the long-term productivity of shifting cultivation landscapes and the persistence of forested areas. © 2015 Magnuszewski et al.

Details

Title: Resilience and alternative stable states of tropical forest landscapes under shifting cultivation regimes
Authors: P Magnuszewski (Author) - International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria
K Ostasiewicz (Author) - International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria
Robin L Chazdon (Author) - University of Connecticut, United States
C Salk (Author) - University of Colorado, United States
M Pajak (Author) - International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria
J Sendzimir (Author) - International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria
K Andersson (Author) - University of Colorado, United States
Publication details: PLoS One, Vol.10(9), e0137497
Publisher: Public Library of Science
Date published: 2015
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0137497
ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
Copyright note: Copyright © 2015 Magnuszewski et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Organisation Unit: Tropical Forests and People Research Centre; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; Forest Research Institute
Language: English
Record Identifier: 99451295402621
Output Type: Journal article
Research Statement: false