Combined Insults Spell Trouble for Rainforests

摘要

For tropical ecologist William Laurance, the most striking thing about walking through a parched rainforest is the sound. He likens it to walking on cornflakes. Leaves and branches crackle underfoot. Rather than a thin layer of soggy leaves, ankle-deep dry debris covers the ground and provides fuel for fire that will further desiccate the forest, priming it for repeated burning. The ferocity and frequency of fires in the rainforests of Brazil and Borneo reached new heights during the 1997-98 El Nino, and scientists are now saying that a combination of interacting factors—including for-est fragmentation, logging, and El Nino-driven drought—has altered the forests' fire regimes and is changing regional climates and reconfiguring the landscape.