As many as half the trees tapped by Amazon as part of a first-of-its kind examination face the prospect of extinction due to rising deforestation issues.

Fox News reports among the more than 5,000 tree species now being plagued are the ones that produce Brazil nuts and mahogany.

Published in the current issue of Science Advances, the internationally conducted study also found that based on the present rate of deforestation over the next three decades, up to 57 percent of the 16,000 trees found in the tropical rainforest could be in danger of coming under attack.

The range heavily depends on if the current pace of destruction of the region's forest continues at the rate it has over the last century or tapers off to lesser levels proposed nearly a decade ago.

If deforestation continues at the same pace, over time nearly 8,700 tree types are predicted to be impacted and thus under distress.

"We've never had a good idea of how many species are threatened in the Amazon," said study co-author Nigel Pitman of the Field Museum in Chicago. "Now with this study, we have an estimate."

Researchers add that more than a decade ago the Amazon was losing nearly 12 million square miles of forest a year, but that figure has now dropped to about one third of that stretch. Still, the attack on the tree that produces Brazil nuts remains under critical threat.

"Mahogany is commercially extinct throughout the Amazon," added Tim Kileen, a scientist from Agteca Amazonica in Bolivia, adding that while there is no more industry harvesting of the wood some trees do still exist.

While not officially among the 158 scientists taking part in the study, Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm praised the work as sensible and important.