Forests in Flux: How Human Disturbance Is Rewriting the Tree of Life in the Tropics

As humans continue to reshape the world’s tropical forests, the impacts go far beyond the loss of forest cover. A new study by Pinho et al. (2025), published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, reveals that human-driven forest loss and degradation are fundamentally altering the composition and function of tree communities across Brazil’s Amazon and Atlantic Forest regions.