SUFICA researchers from Brazil, Chile and UK published their first paper as a team, in the open access journal Land. The paper was led by Andres Salazar, from Eduardo Arellano’s group in Chile. We analysed the agricultural expansion since 1985 around our partner fruit farms in the dry tropical forest known as ‘Caatinga’. Agriculture is still increasing in the area, and native Caatinga is being lost even faster. Yet this landscape is home to a range of special species, including the endangered Northern Tiger Cat, Leopardus tigrinus, known locally as Gato-de-Mato (left). We calculated that if agriculture expands further, adding an additonal 300 m strip around each existing patch, connectivity of the overall landscape will decrease by 6-15%, depending on the movement range of the species of interest. We identified patches of native vegetation that it would be best to save or restore, to preserve the connectivity of the landscape.

Read the paper here.

Lynn Dicks

31.03.22