Image: How to be manipulative: intelligent tinkering is key to understanding ecology and rehabilitating ecosystems - Scientific Figure on ResearchGate.

In the picture above, we see Brazilian rainforest that has been experimentally set up to have difference sizes of plots (stores) surrounded by deforestation. The forest fragments project^[1], since 1979, has monitored 94 hectares (232 acres) of forest plots.  Every five years, the project conducts a tree census, tagging, collecting data on, and cataloging every tree larger than 10 cm in diameter.  The data is then compiled into a database. Many conclusions can be made from this research but put simply, the smaller the area (the smaller the stores), the less resilient that area is to rare events such as extreme weather events. So in this case, humans, through their actions of deforestation, reducing the size of the stores and the diversity, have reduced the resilience of the system. Other conclusions^[2] include:

• many rainforest species are naturally rare and hence are either missing entirely from many fragments or so sparsely represented as to have little chance of long-term survival
• edge effects (the smaller the area, the bigger the edge) are a prominent driver of fragment dynamics, strongly affecting forest microclimate, tree mortality, carbon storage and a diversity of fauna
• the most locally extinction-prone animal species are those that have both large area requirements and low tolerance of the modified habitats surrounding fragments
• the most vulnerable plants are those that respond poorly to edge effects or chronic forest disturbances, and that rely on vulnerable animals for seed dispersal or pollination
• global and regional drivers of change are also impacting the community composition, making some species more abundant than previously, e.g. tree lianas.