Toward the saving of global rainforests

Rainforests are the Earth's largest terrestrial carbon sinks and are rapidly shrinking due to unprecedented human impact, especially tropical rainforests, which host similar to 50% of global biodiversity. Understanding what makes rainforests resilient on a long-term basis is key to preserving global rainforests and their ecological services. Here, using estimates of rates of change (RoC) in fossil pollen records, an indicator for temporal compositional change (turnover) in vegetation, we show that accelerating trends in global rainforest changes (increasing RoC/turnover) during the last 12,000 years were mainly driven by intensive agricultural practices, and the highly diverse and productive tropical rainforests were the most impacted. Management/ conservation strategies aimed at the effective management of human impact will help promote rainforest health and diversity and increase resilience under projected climate change.

Automated summary

Research shows that the accelerating trends in global rainforest changes over the past 12,000 years were primarily driven by intensive agricultural practices. This had the most impact on the highly diverse and productive tropical rainforests. Implementing effective management and conservation strategies will help promote rainforest health and diversity, and enhance their resilience to climate change.