The Atlantic Forest: An introduction to the megadiverse forest of South America

Abstract

The Atlantic Forest, the second largest forest in South America and one of the most biodiverse biomes in the world, is also one of the most threatened and important for conservation. In this chapter, we introduce the Atlantic Forest focusing on describing the evolution of knowledge, the geographical limits, and the current proposals of sectorization in ecological units. The knowledge of the Atlantic Forest can be explained by three successive phases: (1) the science of naturalists (the late eighteenth century to the late nineteenth century), where the flora and fauna were described by European travelers; (2) the rise of science in Brazil, characterized by the organization of Atlantic Forest biodiversity in collections (1890-1985); and (3) the contemporary era (1985-2020), characterized by the publication of 8226 studies focused on 4 main topics - biogeography and systematics, conservation and biodiversity, plant-animal interaction, and populations and community. The understanding of the distribution limits of the Atlantic Forest biome (11 different proposals), as well as sectorization (4 different proposals), has been the subject of several studies and legislations, which are presented and discussed. Additionally, we present terminologies usually used to designate the Atlantic Forest as a whole, as well as its sectors, to facilitate understanding in future studies. We conclude that understanding the Atlantic Forest remains a long and endless exercise, given its complexity, increased knowledge, and continuous threats.