Ecosystem services supply and interactions along secondary tropical dry forests succession

Abstract

Secondary forests will likely dominate future tropical landscapes, and the ecosystem services they provide to humanity will be particularly relevant. However, few empirical studies provide quantitative evidence of how the supply of ecosystem services change along secondary forest succession. The need for such information is particularly pressing for tropical dry forests because of their extensive global coverage and a high degree of disturbance. Here we examine the changes in the potential supply of ecosystem services and the interactions among them along secondary tropical dry forest succession for a site on the Mexican Pacific coast. Using data from a chronosequence of twelve sites followed over ten years, we characterized changes in five ecosystem services along a successional gradient from abandoned farmland to old-growth forests: forage, multiple forest resources, microclimate regulation, carbon storage and carbon sequestration. The long-term recovery trajectory for each service was modelled using linear and non-linear mixed models. Interactions among them were examined over different timeframes using Spearman correlations. The results showed rapid non-linear recovery of multiple forest resources provision, microclimate regulation and carbon storage within the first two decades of succession. Carbon sequestration increased slightly over time, while the supply of forage showed no clear trend. The strength of the interactions among pairs of services changed through successional time, being particularly higher in farmlands and old-growth forests. Our findings suggest that adaptive forest management practices that foster the natural regeneration of tropical dry forests are cost-effective mechanisms to recover the supply of critical ecosystem services for local actors by meeting their livelihood needs as well as those for the global community through climate change mitigation. Maintaining tropical dry forest resilience will highly depend on the maintenance of diversity in terms of species and ecosystem services.