Abstract Mountain regions are key hotspots for biodiversity conservation and for provisioning ecosystem services. Containing fragile ecosystems and home to millions of inhabitants, mountains are also places of great value for tourism, cultural practices and endemic species. In this paper, we developed the first multitemporal land-use and land-cover assessment of mountain regions within the Brazilian Atlantic Forest (BAF), the most endangered Brazilian tropical biome. The study used spatial thematic mapping for 1985, 2001, and 2018 to understand changes in landscape composition, patterns of change in patch metrics of natural vegetation cover, and correlations between human population and natural vegetation. Change detection techniques, landscape metrics and statistical tests (e.g., Kruskal-Wallis) were applied. We found that landscape composition did not change at significant levels over the 34 years (1985–2018), but that intense exchange between natural vegetation and agriculture creates a shifting mosaic steady-state. Additionally, natural vegetation loss was 13-fold lower within mountains than in other areas of the BAF biome, which indicates lower human-induced change in mountain regions. Urban and rural population (number of inhabitants) showed positive correlation with natural vegetation at municipality level indicating higher presence of population in municipalities with large extents of natural vegetation. Analysis demonstrated that the study region was under lower population pressure and urban growth compared to other areas and had kept large extents of natural vegetation within large patches, different to what is observed at biome level. However, telecoupling processes may result in indirect land changes in mountain regions of the BAF biome. Our results indicate that mountains play a key role in conserving the remnants of the BAF.

中文翻译：

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巴西大西洋森林山区三年土地利用和土地覆盖变化

摘要 山区是生物多样性保护和生态系统服务提供的关键热点。山区包含脆弱的生态系统和数百万居民的家园，也是旅游、文化习俗和特有物种的重要场所。在本文中，我们对巴西大西洋森林 (BAF) 内的山区进行了首次多时相土地利用和土地覆盖评估，这是巴西最濒危的热带生物群落。该研究使用 1985、2001 和 2018 年的空间专题制图来了解景观组成的变化、自然植被覆盖斑块指标的变化模式以及人口与自然植被之间的相关性。应用了变化检测技术、景观指标和统计测试（例如，Kruskal-Wallis）。我们发现，在 34 年（1985-2018 年）中，景观构成没有发生显着变化，但自然植被和农业之间的激烈交流创造了一个不断变化的马赛克稳态。此外，山区的自然植被损失比 BAF 生物群落的其他地区低 13 倍，这表明山区人为引起的变化较低。城市和农村人口（居民数量）与直辖市级的自然植被呈正相关，表明自然植被覆盖面积较大的直辖市人口较多。分析表明，与其他地区相比，研究区域的人口压力和城市增长较低，并且在大片斑块内保留了大量自然植被，这与在生物群落水平上观察到的情况不同。然而，远程耦合过程可能会导致 BAF 生物群落山区的间接土地变化。我们的结果表明，山脉在保护 BAF 遗迹方面发挥着关键作用。