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Passive Restoration in Biodiversity Hotspots: Consequences for an Atlantic Rainforest Lizard Taxocene
Author(s) -
Guerrero Agustín Camacho,
da Rocha Pedro Luís Bernardo
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
biotropica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.813
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1744-7429
pISSN - 0006-3606
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-7429.2009.00584.x
Subject(s) - rainforest , species richness , ecology , biodiversity , habitat , vegetation (pathology) , restoration ecology , biomass (ecology) , secondary forest , abundance (ecology) , lizard , geography , biology , medicine , pathology
Long‐term conservation in biodiversity hotspots depends on the recovery of communities in secondary forest fragments. In most cases, however, recovery strategies for these areas are based only on passive restoration. It is therefore necessary to determine the efficiency of such strategies. In this study, we assess the efficiency of passive restoration on a 567‐ha 28‐yr‐old fragment of Atlantic Rainforest in Northeastern Brazil. We measured richness, composition, abundance and biomass of a lizard taxocene and also vegetation structure and availability of several microhabitat descriptors in 18 plots of this secondary forest. We then compared them with measures in 29 plots from two neighboring reference sites. Species richness, abundance, biomass and microhabitat descriptors availability inside the secondary fragment did not differ from reference sites. However, composition and vegetation structure showed small differences. Some forest specialist lizards, which should be a focus of conservation efforts in fragmented landscapes of the Atlantic Rainforest, were not found in the fragment and data indicate that this was not due to sampling or a lack of suitable habitat or microhabitat. In the presence of preserved source sites, passive restoration may be a cheap and effective way to recover lizard taxocenes of the Atlantic Rainforest. Some of the species may need to be re‐introduced to accelerate the full recovery of original composition of lizard taxocenes in secondary Atlantic Rainforests.