Article Title & Authors: Amazonian vegetation types and indigenous lands threatened by upcoming climate change: Forecast impact for Brazilian biomes. Arruda et al.

  1. What is the purpose/goal of this study? (at least 2 sentences)
    The purpose of this study is to estimate how much natural biomes in Brazil will change in response to future changes in climate. The majority of the biomes in the study are located in the Amazon, where the climate is consistently changing.
  2. Why is this issue significant/why do we care? (at least 2 sentences)
    Climate extremes that are unprepared for could cause biodiverse biomes, like the Amazon, to lose several species and vegetation. These effects can also apply to places far outside of South America if strategies are not put in place to prepare for these issues.
  3. What words/vocab do you need to know to make this make sense? Define them here. (at least 3 terms).
    Biomes are ecological areas on Earth’s surface with a certain climate, vegetation, and animals. Anthropogenic pressure is stress on the environment caused by issues like deforestation, agriculture, and pollution. Ecological niche modeling is a method used to predict the distribution of species based on the conditions in their environment.
  4. What approach are they taking in this study? (Describe the specific qualitative or quantitative methods used, at least 3 sentences). The authors of this article mostly used models to predict changes in plants. A few of these models involved mapping out biomes alongside indigenous territories. These models were all set to continue until the year 2070.
  5. What are the results of the study? Explain what they found when they compared or measured different variables. If there are figures – write a sentence summarizing each figure/table. (at least 3 sentences).
    The authors found that future climate changes in the Amazon will cause a decrease in biodiversity overtime. A major cause is the lack of a habitat to support these animals. Along with that, these climate changes cause an environment to become more vulnerable to further stressors.
  6. Does the data make sense based on your experiences? Explain why or why not. (at least 2 sentences)
    Yes, the results of this study make sense to me, simply because of how fragile natural ecosystems already are. The survival of multiple species often relies on one or two organisms, which explains why these ecosystems are so sensitive when it comes to climate change.
  7. How is this pushing the field forward and helping society? (at least 2 sentences)
    The information from this study lets us know that we need to prepare for the effects of climate change before we start to lose hundreds or thousands of organisms. If we do not prepare now, then the problem will not be the loss of organisms, but the loss of entire ecosystems.