Fine-scale habitat differentiation shapes the composition, structure and aboveground biomass but not species richness of a tropical Atlantic forest

Rodrigues, Alice Cristina; Villa, Pedro Manuel; Ali, Arshad; Ferreira-Júnior, Walnir Gomes; Neri, Andreza Viana

doi:10.1007/s11676-019-00994-x

Cited by 30 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Our results showed that SAD attributes varied with either topographical factors or soil nutrients, whereas SR only exhibited significant variations along soil nutrient gradients. The resulting weak SR–topography relationship is consistent with the recent finding in a tropical forest ( Rodrigues et al, 2020 ). We further discovered that soil nutrients accounted for more variations in species dominance, rarity, and richness than topographical factors, reflecting a relatively greater importance of soil nutrients in governing local diversity patterns.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Disentangling Environmental Effects on the Tree Species Abundance Distribution and Richness in a Subtropical Forest

et al. 2021

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As a transitional vegetation type between evergreen broadleaved forest and deciduous broadleaved forest, evergreen-deciduous broadleaved mixed forest is composed of diverse plant species. This distinctive forest is generally distributed in mountainous areas with complex landforms and heterogeneous microenvironments. However, little is known about the roles of environmental conditions in driving the species diversity patterns of this forest. Here, based on a 15-ha plot in central China, we aimed to understand how and to what extent topographical characteristics and soil nutrients regulate the number and relative abundance of tree species in this forest. We measured environmental factors (terrain convexity, slope, soil total nitrogen, and phosphorus concentrations) and species diversity (species abundance distribution and species richness) in 20 m × 20 m subplots. Species abundance distribution was characterized by skewness, Berger–Parker index, and the proportion of singletons. The generalized additive model was used to examine the variations in diversity patterns caused by environmental factors. The structural equation model was used to assess whether and how topographical characteristics regulate species diversity via soil nutrients. We found that soil nutrients had significant negative effects on species richness and positive effects on all metrics of species abundance distribution. Convexity had significant positive effects on species richness and negative effects on all metrics of species abundance distribution, but these effects were mostly mediated by soil nutrients. Slope had significant negative effects on skewness and the Berger–Parker index, and these effects were almost independent of soil nutrients. Soil nutrients and topographical characteristics together accounted for 9.5–17.1% of variations in diversity patterns and, respectively, accounted for 8.9–13.9% and 3.3–10.7% of the variations. We concluded that soil nutrients were more important than topographical factors in regulating species diversity. Increased soil nutrient concentration led to decreased taxonomic diversity and increased species dominance and rarity. Convexity could be a better proxy for soil nutrients than slope. Moreover, these abiotic factors played limited roles in regulating diversity patterns, and it is possible that the observed patterns are also driven by some biotic and abiotic factors not considered here.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Disentangling Environmental Effects on the Tree Species Abundance Distribution and Richness in a Subtropical Forest

et al. 2021

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“…Rarefaction was estimated as the mean of 100 replicate bootstrapping runs to estimate 95% confidence intervals (e.g. Campos et al 2018;Rodrigues et al 2019;2019b). Whenever the 95% confidence intervals did not overlap, species numbers differed significantly at P < 0.05 (Colwell et al 2012).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The total AGB per plot was the sum of the AGBs of all trees with a DBH ≥ 10 cm, which was then converted into megagrams per hectare (Mg ha − 1 ) (Rodrigues et al 2019a(Rodrigues et al , 2019b. Species-level biomass was calculated as the sum of the biomass of all stems from a given species.…”

Section: Estimation Of Aboveground Carbonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brazilian Atlantic forest carbon stocks undergoing active restoration after bauxite mining exploration: an approach based on functional attributes

Balestrin¹,

Sv²,

Villa³

2020

Preprint

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Background: Tropical forests are important carbon sinks at the global scale. They are important reservoirs of terrestrial carbon and play a fundamental role in global climate regulation. We evaluated the tree species diversity and dominance patterns in stem and carbon stocks in a Brazilian Atlantic forest restored after bauxite mining exploration in the state of Minas Gerais, south-eastern Brazil.Methods: Aboveground carbon was estimated for a permanent 1-ha forest restored after 14 years, measuring all trees with a circumference at breast height (CBH) ≥ 15 cm, planted during restoration. We studied species richness, community composition and stem- and carbon-dominant species based on two categorical functional attributes associated with forest regeneration (successional strategy and dispersal syndrome).Results: The restored forest obtained a high carbon accumulation (~58 Mg ha -1 ), between two and three times more than second-growth forests with the same or more time for natural regeneration, when compared with other restored Brazilian seasonal semideciduous Atlantic Forest stands. The restored forest presented a marked local carbon dominance, with ~7.5% of the tree species of the community representing 50% of the total aboveground carbon (AGC). Anemochoric and zoochoric species presented a similar pattern of carbon dominance, while the initial second-growth species presented a higher carbon storage capacity than the pioneer species.Conclusions: Our findings stress the importance of analysing the relative contributions of species, classified by functional attributes and by their dominance, to ecosystem functioning at fine-scale active restoration.

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“…At regional scale, precipitation, temperature and elevation are the main factors affecting the vegetation growth and distribution ( Siefert et al., 2012 ). However, in the same study area, there is no difference in the precipitation and temperature, thereby micro-environmental factors, such as soil physicochemical and biological properties, slope and its aspect may be the key factors affecting the plant composition ( Pennington et al., 2017 ; Nie et al., 2019 ; Rodrigues et al., 2019 ). Before the forest transformation, soil properties were not significantly different in the P. massoniana and C. lanceolatam pure plantations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Decade of Close-to-Nature Transformation Alters Species Composition and Increases Plant Community Diversity in Two Coniferous Plantations

Ming

Liu

et al. 2020

Front. Plant Sci.

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Close-to-nature transformation silviculture is a promising approach to meet the criteria for sustainable forestry. To explore the effects of close-to-nature transformation on community structure and plant diversity in Pinus massoniana and Cunninghamia lanceolatas pure plantations, four stands were selected, including close-to-nature transformed stand of P. massoniana (PCN) and its unimproved pure stand (PCK), and close-to-nature transformed stand of C. lanceolata (CCN) and its unimproved pure stand (CCK). Plant diversity and community structure in the four stands were investigated before and after a decade of close-to-nature transformation. After the close-to-nature transformation, the plant diversity and community structure were significantly altered. Compared with control stands, the transformation increased the species richness and diversity of the tree layer and the whole community, while did not significantly affected the shrub and herb diversity. The species richness in the tree layer in the P. massoniana and C. lanceolata plantations was 2.1 and 2.8 times that of their corresponding control. Species composition and important value of each species were altered in the tree, shrub and herb layers. The close-to-natural transformation lowered the community dominance and the important value of P. massoniana and C. lanceolate. The advantage position of single species in the community was weakened by the forest transformation. The plant community became diversified and uniformly distributed. The enhanced community species diversity was derived from the increase in the tree diversity. These results indicated that close-to-nature transformation increased the forest plant diversity and optimized the community structure. The close-to-nature transformation plays a positive role in coniferous plantation ecosystem structure.

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Fine-scale habitat differentiation shapes the composition, structure and aboveground biomass but not species richness of a tropical Atlantic forest

Cited by 30 publications

References 51 publications

Disentangling Environmental Effects on the Tree Species Abundance Distribution and Richness in a Subtropical Forest

Disentangling Environmental Effects on the Tree Species Abundance Distribution and Richness in a Subtropical Forest

Brazilian Atlantic forest carbon stocks undergoing active restoration after bauxite mining exploration: an approach based on functional attributes

A Decade of Close-to-Nature Transformation Alters Species Composition and Increases Plant Community Diversity in Two Coniferous Plantations

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