scholarly journals Changes in Phylogenetic Community Structure of the Seedling Layer Following Hurricane Disturbance in a Human-Impacted Tropical Forest

Forests ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liza Comita ◽  
María Uriarte ◽  
Jimena Forero-Montaña ◽  
W. Kress ◽  
Nathan Swenson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Community Structure ◽  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Abiotic Factors ◽  
Seed Mass ◽  
Natural Disturbance ◽  
Forest Recovery ◽  
Phylogenetic Relatedness ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Factors ◽  
Palm Species

Disturbance plays a key role in shaping forest composition and diversity. We used a community phylogeny and long-term forest dynamics data to investigate biotic and abiotic factors shaping tropical forest regeneration following both human and natural disturbance. Specifically, we examined shifts in seedling phylogenetic and functional (i.e., seed mass) community structure over a decade following a major hurricane in a human-impacted forest in Puerto Rico. Phylogenetic relatedness of the seedling community decreased in the first five years post-hurricane and then increased, largely driven by changes in the abundance of a common palm species. Functional structure (based on seed mass) became increasingly clustered through time, due to canopy closure causing small-seeded, light-demanding species to decline in abundance. Seedling neighbor density and phylogenetic relatedness negatively affected seedling survival, which likely acted to reduce phylogenetic relatedness within seedling plots. Across the study site, areas impacted in the past by high-intensity land use had lower or similar phylogenetic relatedness of seedling communities than low-intensity past land use areas, reflecting interactive effects of human and natural disturbance. Our study demonstrates how phylogenetic and functional information offer insights into the role of biotic and abiotic factors structuring forest recovery following disturbance.

scholarly journals How bamboo influences the seed bank and biotic and abiotic factors of a Brazilian tropical forest

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-187
Author(s):  
Débora Cristina Rother ◽  
Paula Ponteli Costa ◽  
Thaís Diniz Silva ◽  
Karinne Sampaio Valdemarin ◽  
Ricardo Ribeiro Rodrigues
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Seed Bank ◽  
Abiotic Factors ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Factors

scholarly journals Natural disturbance and human land use as determinants of tropical forest dynamics: results from a forest simulator

2009 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Uriarte ◽  
Charles D. Canham ◽  
Jill Thompson ◽  
Jess K. Zimmerman ◽  
Lora Murphy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Forest Dynamics ◽  
Natural Disturbance ◽  
Human Land Use ◽  
Tropical Forest Dynamics

scholarly journals The regulatory effects of biotic and abiotic factors on soil respiration under different land-use types

2021 ◽  
Vol 127 ◽  
pp. 107787
Author(s):  
H.B. Xiao ◽  
Z.H. Shi ◽  
Z.W. Li ◽  
J. Chen ◽  
B. Huang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Soil Respiration ◽  
Abiotic Factors ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Factors ◽  
Land Use Types ◽  
Regulatory Effects

scholarly journals Regional and local determinants of drought resilience in tropical forests

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renan Köpp Hollunder ◽  
Mário Garbin ◽  
Fabio Rubio Scarano ◽  
Pierre Mariotte
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Tropical Forests ◽  
Vegetation Structure ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Forest Type ◽  
Abiotic Factors ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Factors ◽  
Drought Resilience ◽  
Dry Tropical Forests

The increase in severity of droughts associated with greater mortality and reduced vegetation growth is one of the main threats to tropical forests. Drought resilience of tropical forests is affected by multiple biotic and abiotic factors varying at different scales. Identifying those factors can help understanding the resilience to ongoing and future climate change. Altitude leads to high climate variation and to different forest formations, principally moist or dry tropical forests with contrasted vegetation structure. Each tropical forest can show distinct responses to droughts. Locally, topography is also a key factor controlling biotic and abiotic factors related to drought resilience in each forest type. Both dry tropical forests and ridges (steeper and drier habitats) are more sensitive to droughts than moist tropical forest and valleys (flatter and wetter habitats). The most important biotic factors are leaf economic and hydraulic plant traits, and vegetation structure. The most important abiotic factors are soil nutrients, water availability and microclimate. Here we show that topography has key roles controlling biotic and abiotic factors in each forest type. Our synthesis highlights that gradients of altitude and topography are essential to understand tropical forest’s resilience to future drought events. We described important factors related to drought resilience, however many important knowledge gaps remain. Filling those gaps will help improve future practices and studies about mitigation capacity, conservation, and restoration of tropical ecosystems.

scholarly journals Natural regeneration in abandoned fields following intensive agricultural land use in an Atlantic Forest Island, Brazil

2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 659-671 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milene Silvestrini ◽  
Airton de Deus Cysneiro ◽  
Aline Lopes Lima ◽  
Larissa Giorgeti Veiga ◽  
Ingo Isernhagen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Natural Regeneration ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Seedling Recruitment ◽  
Abiotic Factors ◽  
Tree Regeneration ◽  
Forest Recovery ◽  
Agricultural Land Use ◽  
Old Fields ◽  
Vegetation Types

The time required to regrowth a forest in degraded areas depends on how the forest is removed and on the type of land use following removal. Natural regeneration was studied in abandoned old fields after intensive agricultural land use in areas originally covered by Brazilian Atlantic Forests of the Anchieta Island, Brazil in order to understand how plant communities reassemble following human disturbances as well as to determine suitable strategies of forest restoration. The fields were classified into three vegetation types according to the dominant plant species in: 1) Miconia albicans (Sw.) Triana (Melastomataceae) fields, 2) Dicranopteris flexuosa (Schrader) Underw. (Gleicheniaceae) thickets, and 3) Gleichenella pectinata (Willd.) Ching. (Gleicheniaceae) thickets. Both composition and structure of natural regeneration were compared among the three dominant vegetation types by establishing randomly three plots of 1 x 3 m in five sites of the island. A gradient in composition and abundance of species in natural regeneration could be observed along vegetation types from Dicranopteris fern thickets to Miconia fields. The gradient did not accurately follow the pattern of spatial distribution of the three dominant vegetation types in the island regarding their proximity of the remnant forests. A complex association of biotic and abiotic factors seems to be affecting the seedling recruitment and establishment in the study plots. The lowest plant regeneration found in Dicranopteris and Gleichenella thickets suggests that the ferns inhibit the recruitment of woody and herbaceous species. Otherwise, we could not distinguish different patterns of tree regeneration among the three vegetation types. Our results showed that forest recovery following severe anthropogenic disturbances is not direct, predictable or even achievable on its own. Appropriated actions and methods such as fern removal, planting ground covers, and enrichment planting with tree species were suggested in order to restore the natural forest regeneration process in the abandoned old fields.

Contributions of biotic and abiotic factors to soil aggregation across a land use gradient

2010 ◽  
Vol 42 (12) ◽  
pp. 2316-2324 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Kathryn Barto ◽  
Fabian Alt ◽  
Yvonne Oelmann ◽  
Wolfgang Wilcke ◽  
Matthias C. Rillig
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Abiotic Factors ◽  
Soil Aggregation ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Factors

Recovery of Nutrient Cycling and Ecosystem Properties Following Swidden Cultivation: Regional and Stand-Level Constraints

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Lawrence ◽  
David R. Foster
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Natural Disturbance ◽  
Annual Precipitation ◽  
Dry Tropical Forest ◽  
Deforestation Rate ◽  
The Past ◽  
Human Use

The total area of agricultural systems in tropical Mexico increased by 64 per cent from 1977 to 1992—a mean annual deforestation rate of 1.9 per cent (Cairns et al. 2000). In all likelihood, this rate has continued for the past ten years. Dry tropical forest covers 8 per cent of Mexico and is subject to conversion for agricultural use (Trejo and Dirzo 2000). Because the southern Yucatán contains the largest contiguous block of dry tropical forest in Mexico and Central America, understanding the biogeochemical consequences of land-use change there is important for effective national and international conservation and development efforts. Over the past four decades the southern Yucatán peninsular region has undergone an increasing amount and intensity of land use (Chs. 3, 9, 10). These land uses, many focused on swidden practices, alter the structure and function of forested lands and often generate new feedbacks in terms of subsequent human use. Consequently, a major goal in assessing regional environmental change is to understand how biogeochemical processes respond to land-use change, emphasizing the potential of a human-dominated landscape to sustain continued human use. One of the greatest challenges in these studies is to untangle the effects of environmentally induced variation from, for example, climate, geology, or natural disturbance, from that induced by human activity. In the SYPR project the approach to this challenge has been to investigate variation in ecosystem processes in several study sites across the dominant environmental gradients while focusing on the influence of local, human-controlled factors within a given area. In the southern Yucatán peninsular region annual precipitation increases by more than 50 per cent over a distance of 120km. Median annual precipitation varies from about 900mm in the northern part of the study area to about 1,400mm in the southern part. This dramatic gradient overlies a seasonal pattern shared by all sites regardless of their total annual precipitation. Rainfall is highly variable, with a pronounced dry period lasting from four to six months, depending on latitude. The range in precipitation observed in the study area encompasses approximately 50 per cent of the variation in precipitation of dry tropical forests worldwide (Murphy and Lugo 1986).

scholarly journals Soil Fungal Community Composition Correlates with Site-Specific Abiotic Factors, Tree Community Structure, and Forest Age in Regenerating Tropical Rainforests

Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1120
Author(s):  
Irene Adamo ◽  
Edgar Ortiz-Malavasi ◽  
Robin Chazdon ◽  
Priscila Chaverri ◽  
Hans ter Steege ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Structure ◽  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Fungal Community ◽  
Forest Succession ◽  
Secondary Forest ◽  
Abiotic Factors ◽  
Forest Age ◽  
Secondary Forest Succession ◽  
Soil Fungal Community

Successional dynamics of plants and animals during tropical forest regeneration have been thoroughly studied, while fungal compositional dynamics during tropical forest succession remain unknown, despite the crucial roles of fungi in ecological processes. We combined tree data and soil fungal DNA metabarcoding data to compare richness and community composition along secondary forest succession in Costa Rica and assessed the potential roles of abiotic factors influencing them. We found a strong coupling of tree and soil fungal community structure in wet tropical primary and regenerating secondary forests. Forest age, edaphic variables, and regional differences in climatic conditions all had significant effects on tree and fungal richness and community composition in all functional groups. Furthermore, we observed larger site-to-site compositional differences and greater influence of edaphic and climatic factors in secondary than in primary forests. The results suggest greater environmental heterogeneity and greater stochasticity in community assembly in the early stages of secondary forest succession and a certain convergence on a set of taxa with a competitive advantage in the more persisting environmental conditions in old-growth forests. Our work provides unprecedented insights into the successional dynamics of fungal communities during secondary tropical forest succession.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document