Study area
We conducted this study near Sinop, Mato Grosso, Brazil (11.8608°S, 55.5095°W; Fig. 2) at the southern edge of the Amazon forest biome. This area is largely defined by seasonally dry evergreen tropical forest (NT0140) at the transition zone between the Cerrado scrubland savannah and Amazon biomes (Fig. 2). The climate is classified as neotropical with a fairly consistent mean temperature all year-round (24-25°C), but with great variation in mean precipitation between the dry (mean July rainfall = 2 mm) and the wet season (mean February rainfall = 309 mm) . The study area was nearly completely forested until the 1970s when cattle ranching, logging, and more recently soybean agriculture began fragmenting the once contiguous forest and promoted rapid development of urban areas. This is consistent with patterns of deforestation across the Brazilian Amazon where soybean monoculture is one of the primary drivers of deforestation (Fearnside, 2017; Nepstad et al., 2006). Thus, a mosaic of primarily soybean agriculture (that is typically intercropped with maize), exotic pastures, and forest fragments have replaced primary forest.