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Assembly patterns of tree seedling communities in a human‐dominated Tropical landscape
Author(s) -
Menezes Tatiane G. C.,
Melo Felipe P. L.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
austral ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.688
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1442-9993
pISSN - 1442-9985
DOI - 10.1111/aec.12798
Subject(s) - ecology , regeneration (biology) , abandonment (legal) , geography , disturbance (geology) , species richness , diversity (politics) , species diversity , ecological succession , biology , paleontology , sociology , political science , anthropology , law , microbiology and biotechnology
Abstract Understanding how different components of species diversity of regenerating areas respond to both time of abandonment and landscape metrics may offer crucial information for both theoretical and practical purposes. Using 15 regeneration areas (from 4 to 30 years) and nine areas of mature forest, we assessed how tree seedling assemblage responds to time of abandonment and forest cover in terms of species diversity and taxonomic composition. We found that species diversity of seedlings responded positively to time of abandonment, but was not influence by forest cover. Diversity of rare and common species ( 0 D and 1 D , respectively) but not dominant species ( 2 D ) increased with time of abandonment, reaching reference values very quickly (ca. 20 years). However, species composition seemed to respond to both ageing of forest stand and landscape structure represented by forest cover. Our findings reinforce that in human‐dominated landscapes, local processes related to recovery with time should be more important for plant community assembly than landscape structure, leading to a number of possibilities for multiple successional pathways. Abstract in Portuguese is available with online material.