Abstract
I report here on an ongoing permanent plot study in areas recovering from agriculture in Ecuador. These plots were set up in 1995 at Maquipucuna Reserve where the forest is tropical lower montane. The study consists of replicate fields in three past crop types (Sugarcane, Banana, and Pasture) for a total of six fields. Each field was first divided into 25 continuous 2 m × 5 m subplots which together form a 10 m × 25 m plot with the longest side bordering the adjacent forest. Then starting in 1996, and continuing annually every year since, each subplot has been sampled for percent cover of all plants and diameter at breast height (dbh) for all trees whose dbh is greater than or equal to 1 cm. I have used that data in these published studies: (1) species composition and life form, richness, and basal area trends, (2) computation of all positive and negative pairwise species associations, (3) relationships between richness and productivity over time, (4) dominance-diversity curves, and (5) definition and quantification of old field plant communities. Finally with the help of the LTER program in Puerto Rico, this sampling continues, with 2012 marking the sixteenth year of continuous annual sampling.
Highlights
Conducted for decades over many of the most common gradients on earth, studies of succession a er agriculture— called postagricultural or old eld succession—have helped ecologists gain insights into the processes that structure plant communities and into the role of history and initial conditions in community development [1, 2]
Recovery of Neotropical areas a er agriculture [25,26,27] is relevant to such important issues as forest regeneration [19, 21, 28,29,30], forest ecosystem restoration [28, 31], sustainability of agriculture [28, 32], maintenance of biodiversity [28, 33], and impacts of global climate change on forest dynamics [34,35,36,37]
Neotropical areas recovering from agriculture may serve as a buffer between primary forest and more intensely human-in uenced areas [28]
Summary
Long-Term Data from Fields Recovering after Sugarcane, Banana, and Pasture Cultivation in Ecuador. I report here on an ongoing permanent plot study in areas recovering from agriculture in Ecuador. Each eld was rst divided into 25 continuous 2 m × 5 m subplots which together form a 10 m × 25 m plot with the longest side bordering the adjacent forest. I have used that data in these published studies: (1) species composition and life form, richness, and basal area trends, (2) computation of all positive and negative pairwise species associations, (3) relationships between richness and productivity over time, (4) dominance-diversity curves, and (5) de nition and quanti cation of old eld plant communities. With the help of the LTER program in Puerto Rico, this sampling continues, with 2012 marking the sixteenth year of continuous annual sampling
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