Biodiversity degradation is a serious global problem, and conservation or restoration has been conducted in various ecosystems. The objective of this study was to examine effective conservation measures and restoration goals for epiphytes on the basis of changes in epiphyte flora during the past 30 years on Mt. Odaigahara, Japan. Comparison of epiphyte diversity between 1983 and 2008 indicated that species richness and cover in plots surveyed in 1983 had declined significantly by 2008. The results of nonmetric multidimensional scaling showed that the dominance of hygrophilous species decreased on trees surveyed in 2008 accompanied with forest decline. In addition, total species richness decreased with increasing coverage of wire mesh installed for protection against debarking by deer. We conclude that severe drought stress caused by forest decline after the 1980s and the toxic effects of wire mesh on epiphytes have led to a dramatic decrease in epiphyte diversity during the past 30 years. To conserve epiphyte diversity, first, tree protection without wire mesh should be adopted. In addition, intensive conservation of undamaged forest patches may be necessary to prevent loss of remaining hygrophilous species from this region. The results also indicate that epiphyte diversity can be strongly affected by slight changes in forest structure, and by site-specific environmental factors. Considering that these changes or environmental factors are often not easy to evaluate, comparison of epiphyte diversity before and after disturbance can be an important means of determining appropriate restoration objectives.
The structural materials o f twenty one nests of the Japanese dormouse Glirulus japonicus (Schinz, 1845) collected at Mt Fuji and Mt Akadake in 1988, were analyzed. Fifty seven species of bryophytes were found: 42 species of Musci and 15 of Hepaticae which constituted the major portion o f the materials sampled. Most of these species were epiphytes on tree trunks, and this confirms the supposition that the Japanese dormouse uses arboreal space.Kumanogawa elementary school, 570 Hitari, Kumanogawa, Wakayama, 647-12 Japan (SM); Tanabe commercial high school, 736 Mikonohama, Tanabe, Wakayama, 646 Japan (HD)
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.