Assessment on the growth performance of planted Dryobalanops beccarii at reforestation sites after implementation of selective girdling

Abstract

Abstract. Wasli ME, Ambun DB, Kalu M, Sidi M, Nahrawi H, Elias H. 2020. Assessment on the growth performance of planted Dryobalanops beccarii at reforestation sites after implementation of selective girdling. Biodiversitas 21: 1880-1889. This study was conducted to evaluate the growth performance of planted Dryobalanops beccarii Dyer at reforestation sites after silvicultural practices in Gunung Apeng National Park (GANP), Sarawak. The assessed area was planted with D. beccarii in 2005 and undergo silvicultural treatment by understory clearing which implemented annually. Due to the suppressed growth rate of the planted trees, an additional silvicultural treatment, the selective girdling on selected pioneer species, was implemented once, in 2012. In this study, study plots with two treatments were established: T1: understory clearing only (control plot), and T2: additional selective girdling of existing pioneer species in addition to the understory clearing practice applied in T1. The growth performance of the planted D. beccarii in terms of DBH, height, survival and mean annual increments in diameter (MaiD) and height (MaiH) were assessed and monitored at the initial stage when the selective girdling treatment was applied and 4, 24, 36, 48, 60 and 72 months after girdling. Our findings showed that the survival rates of planted trees at 72 months under treatments T1 and T2 were 82.9% and 79.2%, respectively. The average tree DBH in T2 was significantly higher than that in T1, and the average tree DBH values for T1 and T2 were 7.5 cm and 9.4 cm, respectively. The average tree heights for T1 and T2 were 8.3 m and 9.2 m, respectively. In terms of the mean annual increments in height (MaiH) and diameter (MaiD), those in T2 were significantly higher than those in T1. Our findings indicated that T2 started to show better growth performance than T1 after a period of 36 months. In conclusion, the additional silvicultural treatment by selective girdling at the reforestation site had a long-term, progressive effect on the growth performance of the planted trees.

Short Communication: Incidence of insect pest on planted Shorea macrophylla at reforestation sites in Gunung Apeng National Park, Sarawak, Malaysia

“…Approximately 700 hectares of the area had been planted with different types of indigenous species, including Dipterocarps trees such as Dryobalanops beccarii, Shorea parvifolia, and S. macrophylla. The detailed information on the reforestation activities at the study area was reported in our previous study (Wasli et al 2020). The climate is tropical wet (no dry seasons) with subtropical wet forest biozone (Anon 2002).…”

“…Gunung Apeng National Park (GANP), Sarawak, Malaysia, is one of the sites reforested through enrichment planting (Wasli et al 2020). With the addition of planted indigenous trees into secondary forest areas through enrichment planting, there are abundant food and good breeding ground for various insect pest species (Itoh et al 1995).…”

Coarse woody debris provides cobenefits between carbon stock and diversity of polypore fungi in Malaysian forest stands

“…Lambir Hills NP comprises an area of 6949 ha of lowland mixed dipterocarp forests with an average annual rainfall of 2723 mm (1969 2002) (Kume et al 2011), and Gunung Gading NP comprises an area of 5430 ha of lowland mixed dipterocarp forests and lower montane forests with an average annual rainfall of 4095 mm (Lateef et al 2016) (Kenzo et al 2015). Average annual temperature ranges from 23 ℃ in the morning to 33 ℃ in the middle of the afternoon and average annual rainfall is 3500 mm in the Gunung Apeng NP (Wasli et al 2014(Wasli et al , 2020…”

Estimating soil organic carbon at Takasago UNIMAS Educational Forest for forest rehabilitation

“…In the tropics, reforestation is essential in aiding biodiversity recovery by restoring forest cover [5]; ecological rehabilitation to restore high-diversity native tropical forest [6]; improving connectivity in rural landscapes [7], and increasing carbon sequestration for addressing climate change [8]. Several studies have been conducted in Sarawak, Malaysia, to understand the ecological aspects of reforestation activities in tropical rainforests on an experimental basis in relation to various factors [9,10,11]. However, less attention has been made to the effect of early establishment enrichment planting sites in restoring the forest area affected by various land uses.…”