Reassembly of a tropical rainforest ecosystem: A new chronosequence in the Ecuadorian Chocó tested with the recovery of tree attributes

作者：Sebastián Escobar, Felicity L. Newell, María‐José Endara, Juan E. Guevara-Andino, Anna R. Landim, Eike Lena Neuschulz, Ronja Nußer, Jörg Müller, Karen Pedersen, Matthias Schleuning, Constance J. Tremlett, Edith Villa‐Galaviz, Hinrich Schaefer, David A. Donoso, Nico Blüthgen · 发表于：bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1101/2024.03.21.586145 · 被引用次数：10 · 研究领域：Tree-ring climate responses、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond

Abstract From hunting and foraging to clearing land for agriculture, humans modify forest biodiversity, landscapes, and climate. Forests constantly undergo disturbance–recovery dynamics and understanding them is a major objective of ecologists and conservationists. Chronosequences are a useful tool for understanding global restoration efforts. They represent a space-for-time substitution approach suited for the quantification of the resistance of ecosystem properties to withstand disturbance and the resilience of these properties until reaching pre-disturbance levels. Here we introduce a newly established chronosequence with 62 plots (50 ⍰ 50 m) in active cacao plantations and pastures, early and late regeneration, and mature old-growth forests, across a 200 km2 area in the extremely wet Chocó rainforest. Our chronosequence covers by far the largest total area of plots compared to others in the Neotropics. Plots ranged from 159–615 masl in a forested landscape with 74 ± 2.8 % forest cover within a 1-km radius including substantial old-growth forest cover. Land-use legacy and regeneration time were not confounded by elevation. We tested how six forest structure variables (maximum tree height and DBH, basal area, number of stems, vertical vegetation heterogeneity, and light availability), aboveground biomass (AGB), and rarefied tree species richness change along our chronosequence. Forest structure variables, AGB, and tree species richness increased with regeneration time and a...