LAUSR

Significance Tropical forests are threatened by human activities, which result in deforestation and degradation. However, multiple land-use and land-cover transitions are occurring in tropical landscapes, and we do not know how these transitions differ in terms of their rates and impacts on the ecosystem. We show that deforestation for pasture was the most prevalent and high-impact transition in the Brazilian Amazon, although other less prevalent transitions also caused a reduction in biodiversity and carbon stocks and altered soil properties. Of all the ecosystem properties we studied, biodiversity was the most affected by all land-use and land-cover transitions. We show the importance of considering the multiple transitions and ecosystem properties to understand the current state and future of tropical forest landscapes.