About

Paulo Brando is an Associate Professor of Ecosystem Carbon Capture at Yale School of the Environment. His research focuses on identifying ecological thresholds beyond which global changes cause abrupt, prolonged degradation of terrestrial ecosystems by stressing, disturbing, and killing forests. He has studied ecological and climatological boundaries for tropical agricultural expansion and intensification, broadening understanding of how tropical conservation mitigates climate change. Brando's work emphasizes ecosystem dynamics, biodiversity loss, biogeochemistry, carbon sequestration, and ecosystem resilience, with particular attention to tropical and terrestrial ecosystems. His contributions include advancing knowledge on how forests respond to climate extremes, fire, and land-use change, and finding solutions to feed the planet while maintaining ecological integrity.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Environmental science
• Geography
• Biology
• Agroforestry
• Social Science
• Sociology
• Computer Science
• Environmental resource management
• Forestry
• Environmental planning
• Civil engineering
• Engineering
• Materials science
• Atmospheric sciences
• Business
• Environmental ethics
• Climatology
• Geology

Selected publications

• Forest recovery pathways after fire, drought, and windstorms in southeastern Amazonia

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2026-04-20

  articleOpen access

  The future of tropical forests depends on their ability to resist and recover from multiple disturbances. Here, we evaluated how edge effects, experimental fires, extreme droughts, and blowdowns reshaped forest structure, composition, and functional traits over two decades in the Amazon–Cerrado transition. Initially, forests resisted low-intensity fires, but subsequent high-intensity fires during severe droughts sharply increased susceptibility to further disturbances. Along forest edges bordering agriculture, these compound disturbances drove losses of tree species richness, declines in Amazonian forest-specialist species, and shifts toward generalists with broad distributions, indicating increased compositional homogenization (i.e., reduced taxonomic diversity and dominance of generalist species). Once fires ceased, recovery trajectories diverged: Interior forests rapidly regained woody species richness and composition, whereas edge forests recovered more slowly. During postfire recovery, embolism-resistant species (lower P50 values) became more common, yet communities exhibited lower hydraulic safety margins (increased vulnerability to drought). At the same time, generalist species remained abundant, forest-specialist declined, and only a single woody species typical of savanna was established. Although grasses initially colonized fire-altered edges—especially light-demanding exotic Andropogon gayanus —they declined once fires stopped, leaving only small patches of shade-tolerant C3 species. Consequently, we find little evidence that fire-degraded forests transition toward persistent savanna, although recurrent fires or future climatic changes could drive long-lasting degradation or human-derived savannas. Together, these results show that even highly degraded, grass-invaded forests can recover in the absence of new disturbances, but the communities that reassemble remain vulnerable to renewed fire, drought, or windthrow.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Fire-driven dynamics in Amazonia: Contrasting ancient legacies and modern degradation in soils and vegetation

  2026-03-14

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Fire regimes and human impacts on Amazonian forests have varied over decades to centuries, resulting in disturbances and recoveries that leave lasting legacies on vegetation and soil. While intact (old-growth) forests were once thought to be largely fire-free, our work has shown these forests to have a history of infrequent but recurrent fire. Wildfires have left their signatures in the soil in the form of black carbon (pyrogenic carbon or PyC), the product of incomplete combustion of organic matter. Vegetation has also likely responded to past fire; however, the mechanistic effects of these past disturbances remain poorly understood. Here, we examine Amazon disturbance and recovery processes over space and time (ancient to modern) in relation to fire. We utilise permanent forest plot data (soil PyC, physicochemical properties, vegetation) from two large-scale projects across the Amazon Basin, combined with remote sensing data. The analysis shows that soil texture and hydrology primarily explain the spatial variation of soil PyC at 30 cm depth, while historical climate played a relatively minor role. Furthermore, soil PyC from ancient wildfires is associated with increased soil fertility in intact forests. We also found that distinct groups of tree species in Amazonia are associated with ancient soil PyC. In contrast, modern fires increase soil PyC but result in a reduction in total SOC, degrade soil health, and reduce species richness. These findings indicate that infrequent ancient wildfires recurring at intervals spanning several hundred years had positive impacts on soil fertility and left legacy effects on modern forest composition. Conversely, modern fires, which are extensive and have short return intervals, negatively impact Amazon soils and vegetation on decadal scales. To better assess the long-term impacts of fire on soil carbon, we are incorporating soil PyC into Land Surface Models.

  PublisherDOI

• Tipping Points of Amazonian Forests: Beyond Myths and Toward Solutions

  Annual Review of Environment and Resources · 2025-08-05 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Amazon forests are undergoing rapid transformations driven by deforestation, climate change, fire, and other anthropogenic pressures, leading to the hypothesis that they may be nearing a catastrophic tipping point—beyond which ecosystems could shift to a permanently altered state. This review revisits the concept of an Amazon tipping point and assesses the risk of forest collapse from an ecological perspective. We synthesize evidence showing that environmental stressors can drive critical ecosystem transitions, either gradually through incremental loss of resilience or abruptly via synergistic feedbacks. The interplay between climate and land-use change amplifies risks to biodiversity, ecosystem services, and livelihoods. Yet, there is limited evidence for a single, system-wide tipping point. Instead, the Amazon's resilience—although not unlimited—offers meaningful pathways for recovery. The most immediate and effective strategies to support this resilience include slowing forest loss, mitigating climate change, reducing fire activity, curbing defaunation, and restoring degraded ecosystems. Without decisive action to address direct threats, the Amazon system may be pushed beyond safe ecological-climatological operating limits—even in the absence of sharply defined thresholds—due to the scale and persistence of anthropogenic pressures. Preserving the Amazon's ecological integrity and its vital role in regulating the global climate requires urgent, sustained conservation efforts in collaboration with local and Indigenous communities.

  PublisherDOI

• Amazonian forest resilience inferred from fire-induced changes in carbon stocks and tree diversity

  Environmental Research Letters · 2025-06-19 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Abstract Understanding the resilience of tropical forests to fire is essential for evaluating their dynamics under climate change and increasing land-use pressures. Here, we assess how different fire frequencies and intensities influence tree mortality and carbon dynamics in southeastern Amazonia. Using a replicated randomized block design with 24 plots (40 × 40 m), we applied four treatments: unburned control, one burn in 2016 (B1), two burns in 2013 and 2016 (B2), and two burns with added fuel (B2+) to increase fire intensity. Forest inventories conducted from 2012 to 2024 measured tree mortality, diversity, composition, and aboveground biomass. Fire frequency and intensity significantly increased mortality, particularly among small trees, but impacts on forest structure and productivity were more nuanced. Aboveground biomass declined modestly in burned plots, with the greatest loss in B2+ (13%). Aboveground net primary productivity dropped immediately post-burn, especially in B2 and B2+, and partially recovered by 2022–2024. In contrast, leaf area index and litterfall rebounded within a couple of years, suggesting a degree of structural and functional resilience. Species richness and composition remained relatively stable in the years following the first experimental fires, but gradually declined and shifted in B2 and B2+ plots beginning in 2014. These results indicate that the experimental forests’ resilience to low-intensity and infrequent fires can prevent widespread forest collapse, but repeated and intensified burns likely undermine long-term resilience by altering forest structure, composition, and carbon dynamics. With the southeastern Amazon forests projected to burn more often in the coming decades, our results highlight both the vulnerability and recovery potential of these ecosystems. Maintaining ecological integrity and minimizing additional disturbances that influence fuel availability will be critical for sustaining forest functions under future fire regimes.

  PublisherDOI

• Unveiling the Hidden Green House Gases Footprint of Amazonian Forest Fires

  Research Square · 2025-05-08

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Rapid increase of climate extremes across northern Amazonia

  2025-09-24

  articleOpen access

  Amazonia’s exceptional biodiversity, cultural significance, and ecosystem services make it pivotal to global and regional sustainability. However, the region is increasingly threatened by climate extremes, which exacerbate the effects of land use change (Barlow et al., 2018) and bring about abrupt changes in social and ecological condition (Bennett et al., 2023; Berenguer et al., 2021; Campanharo et al., 2022; Lapola et al., 2023; Libonati et al., 2022; Lima et al., 2024; Machado-Silva et al., 2020; Tadano et al., 2024). Yet, while climate extremes are increasing in many parts of the world (Huntingford et al., 2024), we lack a high-resolution Amazon-wide assessment that compares if they differ from climate averages or identifies spatial hotspots where rates of change are highest. Here we address this by assessing Amazonia’s changing climate at high spatial resolution within seasons and across the year, considering both central trends (50th percentile) and trends of extremes (5th and 95th percentiles). Our analysis includes a new measure of water deficit that accounts for the effects of temperature on evapotranspiration. High temperature extremes and temperature-linked measures of water deficit are both changing at a much faster rate than central trends, and their rates of change are greatest in the driest period. While the central trend of mean temperature change across Amazonia (0.21°C per decade, dec-1) is comparable to the global average, the upper extreme of maximum temperatures in the driest period increased by 0.50°C dec-1. These Amazon-wide trends also mask considerable spatial variation. Crucially, we identify a new region of high climate risk in central-north Amazonia, where over 700,000 square kilometres have experienced increases in extreme dry season temperatures of at least 0.77 °C dec-1 (i.e., ≥3.31 ºC over 43 years). Adaptation measures are urgently required to address the impacts of these rapid changes in climate extremes, including preventing the key stressors of deforestation, forest fires and other disturbances that amplify climate risks.

  PublisherDOI

• Impacts of repeated forest fires and agriculture on soil organic matter and health in southern Amazonia

  CATENA · 2025-03-26 · 11 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Drought and fire affect soil CO2 efflux and use of non-structural carbon by roots in forests of southern Amazonia

  Forest Ecology and Management · 2025-03-10 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Deep soil water reservoirs modulate land use and drought effects on the water budget of Amazon headwaters

  HydroShare Resources · 2025-07-08

  datasetOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Land-use change and deep-soil carbon distribution on the Brazilian Amazon-Cerrado agricultural frontier

  Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment · 2025-01-05 · 13 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• MSB-ECA: Tropical biomes: how agriculture intensification and climate may alter fire regimes

  NSF · $300k · 2018–2019

• MSB-ECA: Tropical biomes: how agriculture intensification and climate may alter fire regimes

  NSF · $198k · 2019–2021

• LTREB: Legacy effects of compounding disturbances in the Amazon: implications for ecosystem carbon and water cycling

  NSF · $449k · 2022–2026

• LTREB: Legacy effects of compounding disturbances in the Amazon: implications for ecosystem carbon and water cycling

  NSF · $358k · 2021–2023

Frequent coauthors

• Divino Vicente Silvério

  153 shared

• Michael T. Coe

  Woodwell Climate Research Center

  127 shared

• Daniel C. Nepstad

  Earth Island Institute

  125 shared

• Márcia N. Macedo

  Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia

  122 shared

• Jennifer K. Balch

  Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

  100 shared

• Susan Trumbore

  78 shared

• Eric A. Davidson

  73 shared

• Paul A. Lefebvre

  University of Minnesota

  56 shared

Education

• Interdisciplinary Ecology, Biology

  University of Florida

  2010

• Engenharia Florestal, Forestry

  Universidade de São Paulo Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz

  2003