Abstract
BackgroundUnderstanding how soil fertility changes due to topographical conditions and forest attributes is an essential premise for local-scale forest management practices. We evaluated the effects of topographic variables and forest attributes on soil fertility along a local topographical gradient in a Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We hypothesised that soil fertility is positively affected by topographic variability and forest attributes (structure and diversity). We used tree species richness, composition, abundance, and aboveground biomass as forest attributes. We analysed two 1-ha forest patches with contrasting topographical conditions. We used different linear mixed effects models (LMMs) to test the main effects of different forest attributes and topography variables on soil fertility.ResultsThe results showed that higher topographic variability determines soil fertility along a fine-scale gradient. The first two axes of the PCA explained 66.8% of the variation in soil data, with the first axis (PCA1) explaining 49.6% of the variation in soil data and positively correlating with fertility-related soil properties. The second axis (PCA2) explained 17.2% of the variation in topographical data and positively correlated with convexity (the elevation of a plot minus the average elevation of all immediate neighbour plots) and elevation. Our best models showed that topographic variables (elevation and convexity) are the main predictors that affect fine-scale soil fertility.ConclusionsOur study demonstrates that the topographic variability, mainly elevation and convexity, determines fine-scale soil fertility in an Atlantic Forest. These results advance our understanding that context-dependent conditions based on topography and soil properties have a high variability at a fine scale, which can influence variations in forest attributes (i.e., species distribution, diversity and structure of tree communities). In addition, the information generated in this research may be important for planning forest restoration activities (passive and active) based on the high variability of environmental variables at a fine scale.
Highlights
Understanding how soil fertility changes due to topographical conditions and forest attributes is an essential premise for local-scale forest management practices
We evaluated soil-related fertility properties, tree species richness and composition, abundance and aboveground biomass as main forest attributes along a topographical gradient
Differences in forest attributes Our results showed differences in forest structure and diversity attributes between patches (Fig. 2A, B), except for aboveground biomass (Fig. 2C)
Summary
Understanding how soil fertility changes due to topographical conditions and forest attributes is an essential premise for local-scale forest management practices. Environmental conditions (i.e., climate, topography) and forest attributes (i.e., tree species composition, richness, abundance and biomass) can simultaneously explain chemical soil properties and fertility variability (Baker et al 2009; Malhi et al 2009; Rodrigues et al Ecol Process (2021) 10:62. On a local-scale, where the climate does not change spatially, abiotic and biotic factors such as soil properties, topographical conditions and forest attributes (i.e., diversity and structure of tree community) increase the relative effects on patterns and process of second-growth forests (Villa et al 2018a, 2020). Few studies have analysed the effect of forest attributes and topography on soil fertility This information can be essential for the Atlantic Forest restoration because the fine scale environmental variability (i.e., topography and soil) determines the selection and spatial distribution of the tree species
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