Nunes, Matheus

Bio

Matheus Henrique Nunes is an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland and a scientist in NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) mission. His research seeks to understand the ecological processes that shape the structure, diversity, functioning and resilience of tropical forests, and how these ecosystems respond to natural and anthropogenic disturbances under a changing climate.

He combines satellite observations, airborne and terrestrial LiDAR, extensive field observations and ecological modelling to investigate how climate, disturbance and human activities influence forest ecosystems across spatial scales. His work is grounded in years of field research across tropical ecosystems, particularly in the Amazon, Atlantic Forest, Cerrado, Borneo and East Africa. He has advanced the use of LiDAR to quantify the effects of climate, soils, topography and human disturbances on forest structure, dynamics, phenology and tree architecture, providing new insights into tropical forest responses to global environmental change.

Nunes collaborates with researchers across South America, Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia on large-scale initiatives to monitor tropical forests and improve understanding of their role in the Earth system. His work has been published in leading journals including Nature, Science, Nature Communications, Nature Reviews Biodiversity, Nature Ecology & Evolution, Nature Sustainability, Global Change Biology, Remote Sensing of Environment and New Phytologist.

He received his PhD in Plant Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 2019, following undergraduate and master's training in Forest Engineering and Forest Resources at the Federal University of Lavras and the University of São Paulo, respectively. Before joining the University of Maryland, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki.

Degrees

University of Cambridge, UK - 2019 - Ph.D
University of São Paulo, Brazil - 2013 - MSc
Federal University of Lavras, Brazil - 2010 - B.S.

Research Topics

Carbon, Vegetation Dynamics and Landscape-Scale Processes
Remote Sensing

Nunes, M. H., Muller-Landau, H., Gorgens, E. Pascual, A., Dubayah, R. (2026). Heterogeneous climatic controls on tropical forest biomass. Nature, accepted.

Aguirre-Gutiérrez, J., Cortes, I., Nunes, M. H., Cho, M., Takeshige, R., Malhi, Y. (2026). Remote sensing delivers tropical forest resilience monitoring for the Global Biodiversity Framework. Nature Reviews Biodiversity, accepted.

de Lima, R. B., da Silva, D. A. S., Nunes, M. H., et al. (2026). Mapping the density of giant trees in the Amazon. New Phytologist, 249(1), 152–168.

Marsh, C. J., Turner, E. C., Blonder, B., et al. (2025). Tropical forest clearance impacts biodiversity and function, whereas logging changes structure. Science, 387(6730), 171–175.

Maeda, E. E., Brede, B., Calders, K., Disney, M., Herold, M., Lines, E. R., Nunes, M. H., Raumonen, P., Rautiainen, M., Saarinen, N., et al. (2025). Expanding forest research with terrestrial LiDAR technology. Nature Communications, 16(1), 8853.

Terryn, L., Calders, K., Meunier, F., et al. (2024). New tree height allometries derived from terrestrial laser scanning reveal substantial discrepancies with forest inventory methods in tropical rainforests. Global Change Biology, 30(8), e17473.

Ismaeel, A., Tai, A. P. K., Santos, E. G., et al. (2024). Patterns of tropical forest understory temperatures. Nature Communications, 15(1), 549.

Nunes, M. H., Vaz, M. C., Camargo, J. L. C., et al. (2023). Edge effects on tree architecture exacerbate biomass loss of fragmented Amazonian forests. Nature Communications, 14(1), 8129.

Nunes, M. H., Camargo, J. L. C., Vincent, G., et al. (2022). Forest fragmentation impacts the seasonality of Amazonian evergreen canopies. Nature Communications, 13(1), 917.

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