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Bad news for Brazil nuts and Mahogony: Shrinking Amazon forests may lose thousands of trees species

More than 5,000 tree species believed to be in deep trouble
Trees that produce Brazil nuts and mahogany among worst hit

Published: 14:34 EST, 20 November 2015 | Updated: 18:41 EST, 20 November 2015

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A first-of-its-kind examination of the Amazon's trees found that as many as half the species may be threatened with extinction or heading that way because of massive deforestation.

Among the more than 5,000 tree species in deep trouble: the ones that produce Brazil nuts and mahogany.

An international team of 158 scientists found that depending on the degree to which deforestation comes under control in the next 35 years, between 36 and 57 percent of the 16,000 tree species in the tropical rainforest area would be considered threatened.

Specimens from the Brazil nut, Lecythidacene family, are displayed inside the Herbarium at The New York Botanical Garden, in the Bronx borough of New York.An international team of 158 scientists found between 36 and 57 percent of the 16,000 tree species in the tropical rainforest are under threat.

HOW THEY DID IT

The study covered roughly 2.1 million square miles (5.5 million square km) spanning Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.

The researchers analysed Amazonian forest surveys and data on current and projected deforestation areas.

Their study is published in Friday's edition of Science Advances.

The range rests on whether cutting down the region's forest continues at the rate of the late 20th and early 21st centuries or slows down to lesser levels proposed in 2006, study authors said.

If deforestation continues at the same pace, nearly 8,700 tree types are in trouble, but the number of species at risk could be as low as 5,500 if nations are able to cut back as planned, said study co-author Nigel Pitman from the Field Museum in Chicago.

'We've never had a good idea of how many species are threatened in the Amazon,' Pitman said Friday.

'Now with this study, we have an estimate.'

'Many of the species that we suggest may be threatened are used by Amazonian residents on a daily basis, and many others are crucial to Amazonian economies.'

These range from wild populations of economically important food crops like the Brazil nut, açaí fruit and heart of palm, to valuable timber species, to several hundred species that Amazonian residents depend upon for fruits, seeds, thatch, medicines, latex and essential oils, Pitman said.

The trees also are important in their ecosystems for erosion control and climate moderation, Pitman said.

Species at risk range from wild populations of economically important food crops like the Brazil nut, açaí fruit and heart of palm

'Scientists have been raising the alarm about Amazonian deforestation for several decades, and projections indicate that forest loss will continue for the foreseeable future,' said forest ecologist Hans ter Steege of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands.

'The good news is that over the last 10 years the rate of forest loss in the Amazon has dropped dramatically.'

About 15 years ago, the Amazon was losing about 11.6 million square miles of forest a year, said Tim Killeen, a scientist from Agteca Amazonica in Bolivia.

But that figure has dropped to about 3.8 million square miles a year, he said.

Killeen said the tree that produces Brazil nuts is seriously under threat, while 'mahogany is commercially extinct throughout the Amazon.'

He said that means there's no more industry harvesting the wood, but some trees exist.

Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, who was not part of the study, praised the work as sensible and important.