The Metamorphoses of the Atlantic Forest

Survey of 2,000 species shows a predominance of small animals and resistance to forest fragmentation

The cougar, which has adapted to large and small areas of forest – Eduardo Cesar

Carlos Fioravanti

 Large animals have become scarcer and smaller ones are now predominant, but there have been virtually no global extinctions in the Atlantic Forest according to studies based on the Atlantic Series, a database developed by nearly 400 biologists, ecologists, and forest engineers from Brazil and other countries. By consolidating biological data from museum collections, scientific articles, field studies, online databases, master’s dissertations, doctoral theses, technical reports, and field inventories (some published and others not), the researchers also observed that large and small mammals and birds have demonstrated a certain resilience—an ability to adapt—to the extreme fragmentation of the Atlantic Forest. The coastal forest, which also occupies the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, is today about 15% of the size it is estimated to have been five centuries ago when European colonization began, and it is divided into hundreds of smaller areas, most measuring less than one square kilometer…