Bombax ceiba is a Good Native Tree Species for Performing Reforestation to Restore Highly Degraded Tropical Forests in Hainan Island, China

Jinhuan Luo,Jie Cui,Wenjun Hong,Qifang He,Zhaoyuan Tan,Jindian Yang,Hui Zhang,Kai Jiang

doi:10.3389/fenvs.2021.569428

Jinhuan Luo, Jie Cui + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2021.569428

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Abstract

Reforestation is an effective way to alleviate deforestation and its negative impacts on ecosystem services. It is widely recognized that the most key step for reforestation is using suitable native species, but selecting suitable native tree species is much more complex and challenging than the selection of non-native tree species that have been widely used for reforestation. Here, we quantify whether the native tree species (Bombax ceiba) can be suitable for performing reforestation to restore a 0.2 km2 highly degraded tropical monsoon forest in Baopoling Mountain (BPL), Sanya, China, due to 20 years of limestone mining for cement production. We found that stomatal closure helped Bombax ceiba develop higher drought stress tolerance than the most dominant native tree species (Bridelia tomentosa) in an undisturbed tropical rainforest in BPL, thereby better adapting well to drought stress in the dry season. These characteristics in turn facilitated it to have high survival rate (92% ± 4%) and fast growth rate, after three years of monoculture in BPL. Thus, Bombax ceiba is very suitable for performing reforestation to recover highly degraded tropical forests in Hainan Island, China.

Highlights

Historic human disturbance has resulted in very high rates of deforestation and degradation worldwide, which has become a major threat to global biodiversity and ecosystem services (Sahin and Hall, 1996; Foley et al, 2011; Lambin and Meyfroidt, 2011; Vörösmarty et al, 2015)
Pioneer native tree species in the early successional tropical rainforest are assumed fast-growing (Lohbeck et al, 2013; Zhu et al, 2013), their survival and growth rates and germination traits are very less investigated and cannot promise they are better than the non-native tree species for quickly finishing the reforestation project
We used the paired t-test to quantify whether Bombax ceiba could have higher growth rates and drought stress tolerance than Bridelia tomentosa

Summary

Introduction

Historic human disturbance (e.g., ore mining and agricultural use) has resulted in very high rates of deforestation and degradation worldwide, which has become a major threat to global biodiversity and ecosystem services (e.g., freshwater supply and slowing down of global warming) (Sahin and Hall, 1996; Foley et al, 2011; Lambin and Meyfroidt, 2011; Vörösmarty et al, 2015). Pioneer native tree species in the early successional tropical rainforest are assumed fast-growing (Lohbeck et al, 2013; Zhu et al, 2013), their survival and growth rates and germination traits are very less investigated and cannot promise they are better than the non-native tree species for quickly finishing the reforestation project. Tree species in late successional or natural tropical rainforests may better adapt well to a specific environment of the highly degraded ecosystem than the non-native tree species, but they are treated as slow-growing, but with high resources competitive ability (Mason et al, 2012; Mason et al, 2013) As a result, they are not very suitable for performing reforestation in humid tropics

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