Abstract
Rare or endangered tree species are important components of forest ecosystems and play a crucial role in management and conservation. Understanding what influences their presence is critical for managers, conservationists and planners. This study presents results of a comprehensive inventory of the tree species and site characteristics in the Vietnamese Cat Ba National Park (CBNP). An adaptive cluster sampling technique was applied to study the effect of human disturbance, soil properties, and terrain conditions on the presence of IUCN Red List tree species (all individuals > 5 cm diameter at breast height) in three strictly protected areas in CBNP, which have varying levels of isolation. Data from 239 sample plots (500 m2 each) were analyzed. Tree species recorded during the inventory were assigned to two categories: IUCN Red List and other. Our results showed that site characteristics differed in the three protected areas along with the presence of IUCN Red List tree species. IUCN Red List tree species were more frequently found on less favorable soils (low soil depth) and in terrain with more pronounced slopes and with a higher rock surface area (%). However, there is no indication from existing information on the autecology of the different Red List species that the site conditions hosting the species are the ones favored by the species, even on the contrary for some. Although direct signs of human activity (paths, animal traps) could not be related to the presence of Red List tree species, the data suggest that the accessibility of the sites is a strong negative driver for the presence of Red List tree species. We conclude that protection of the forests of the Cat Ba Island should be stricter to allow the IUCN Red List tree species to grow under more appropriate conditions, which then would allow studying their ecology in more detail. This would further allow deriving more precise recommendations for their future protection.
Highlights
Protection of Red List tree species is an important aspect of biodiversity conservation and management [1,2,3]
The lowland area (LLA) was higher in species richness and Shannon index than mid-slope area (MSA)
Our results showed that the IUCN Red List species were more abundant in isolated area (ISA) and MSA than in the LLA (Figure 3), and the presence and distribution of IUCN Red List tree species was more strongly related to site characteristics than to signs of human impacts
Summary
Protection of Red List tree species is an important aspect of biodiversity conservation and management [1,2,3]. Red List tree species are key components of protected areas and/or national parks and often a major reason for the protection of a certain area. Their presence increases the conservational value and uniqueness of ecosystems. Protected areas and national parks play an important role in maintaining populations of Red List tree species [4,5,6,7,8]. Site conditions have often been found to be the driving force for the presence of tree species [13,14,15,16,17]
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