Primary Forest Areas Research Articles

Evolution of sustainable palm oil policy in Southeast Asia

AbstractOver the years large areas of primary and secondary forest have been cut or burned down to make way for oil palm plantations, particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia, the two countries which produce 80.5% of the world’s palm oil. To tackle the many complex sociopolitical issues surrounding the industry, a variety of regulations, treaties and campaigns have been developed by governments and non-governmental organisations (NGO) over the years attempting to create a more sustainable industry, partly in response to pressure from the environmental community. The roundtable on sustainable palm oil is an international non-profit that created the first sustainable palm oil certification scheme. A range of other industry and government initiatives aimed to reduce deforestation due to oil palm expansion were developed and implemented over the years. The emerging themes in the evolution of sustainable palm oil in Southeast Asia include a greater recognition of the complexity of the issue, the importance of ma...

The impact of tropical forest logging and oil palm agriculture on the soil microbiome.

Selective logging and forest conversion to oil palm agriculture are rapidly altering tropical forests. However, functional responses of the soil microbiome to these land-use changes are poorly understood. Using 16S rRNA gene and shotgun metagenomic sequencing, we compared composition and functional attributes of soil biota between unlogged, once-logged and twice-logged rainforest, and areas converted to oil palm plantations in Sabah, Borneo. Although there was no significant effect of logging history, we found a significant difference between the taxonomic and functional composition of both primary and logged forests and oil palm. Oil palm had greater abundances of genes associated with DNA, RNA, protein metabolism and other core metabolic functions, but conversely, lower abundance of genes associated with secondary metabolism and cell-cell interactions, indicating less importance of antagonism or mutualism in the more oligotrophic oil palm environment. Overall, these results show a striking difference in taxonomic composition and functional gene diversity of soil microorganisms between oil palm and forest, but no significant difference between primary forest and forest areas with differing logging history. This reinforces the view that logged forest retains most features and functions of the original soil community. However, networks based on strong correlations between taxonomy and functions showed that network complexity is unexpectedly increased due to both logging and oil palm agriculture, which suggests a pervasive effect of both land-use changes on the interaction of soil microbes.

Mundos de roças e florestas

Resumo Pretendo explorar neste artigo as relações entre os domínios da roça (koo) e da floresta (ka’a), importante oposição da cosmologia wajãpi (grupo Tupi que habita o estado do Amapá). Ka’a e koo, contudo, não se constituem como uma oposição fixa, mas antes como posições relacionais que se movem, nas quais a capoeira ocupa um papel fundamental. Algo que é evidenciado tanto numa dinâmica de ocupação territorial - por meio do cultivo de áreas de mata primária e o abandono dos roçados após a colheita -, quanto por meio das relações perspectivistas que movimentam as categorias de roça e floresta, plantas cultivadas e não-cultivadas, através de distintos sujeitos. Nesse contexto, compreender a dinâmica das relações entre floresta e roçado é fundamental para melhor refletir sobre como algumas famílias wajãpi entendem a atividade agrícola. Proponho essa reflexão estabelecendo um diálogo com ecologia histórica que aponta para a existência de florestas antropizadas, contexto em que a agricultura se apresenta como uma atividade central para a produção de biodiversidade.

Estoque de C e Abundância Natural de 13C em Razão da Conversão de Áreas de Floresta e Pastagem em Bioma Mata Atlântica

RESUMO Conversões da cobertura vegetal decorrentes do manejo podem alterar o estoque de carbono e a abundância natural de 13C. Objetivou-se avaliar o estoque de C e a abundância natural de 13C em áreas de sucessão de floresta (F) e pastagem (P), com diferentes tempos de uso, na Floresta Atlântica no Estado de Santa Catarina. Sete sucessões de uso entre F e P foram definidas por fotografias aéreas tomadas em 1957, 1978 e 2008, entrevistas com moradores e escolha de áreas com florestas em estádio médio de regeneração. As sucessões foram identificadas como FFP, FPF, FFP, FPP, PFF, PPF, PPP, em que a primeira letra se refere ao uso observado em 1957; a segunda, em 1978; e a terceira, em 2008. Foram coletadas amostras de solo nas camadas de 0,00-0,10; 0,10-0,20; 0,20-0,30; 0,30-0,40; 0,40-0,50; 0,50-0,60; 0,60-0,80 e 0,80-1,00 m. Quantificaram-se os teores de carbono orgânico total (COT), abundância de C (δ13C), densidade do solo (Ds) e estoque de carbono (ECOT). A conversão de F em P proporcionou aumento da Ds e reduções nos teores de COT e no ECOT do solo. O maior valor de ECOT ocorreu nas áreas atualmente ocupadas por florestas, mesmo tendo sido utilizadas como pasto anteriormente. Áreas de floresta secundária tenderam, em relação aos teores de COT, a um novo equilíbrio, dado que foram verificados teores de COT superiores aos quantificados em áreas de floresta primária. As áreas de floresta e pastagem, com diferentes idades de uso e nas diferentes profundidades de solo avaliadas, evidenciaram respostas na δ13C, resultando em diferentes assinaturas isotópicas, confirmando a mudança de uso de plantas C3 para C4. Em pastagens com 50 anos de uso, na camada de 0,00-0,10 m, 66 % do COT do solo ainda é derivado da floresta original. A análise de componentes principais (ACP) indicou que o COT foi o atributo que melhor discriminou as alterações em razão do uso da terra, nas diferentes camadas de solo.

Status and trends in global primary forest, protected areas, and areas designated for conservation of biodiversity from the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015

The global community has recognized the importance of forests for biodiversity, and has prioritized the preservation of forest biodiversity and ecosystem functions through multiple multilateral agreements and processes such as the Convention on Biodiversity’s Aichi Targets and the Millennium Development Goals. The Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) provides one mechanism for tracking progress toward such goals in three particular areas: primary forest area, protected forest areas, and areas designated for the conservation of biodiversity. In this paper, we quantify current area and trends in forest areas designated for the conservation of biodiversity, protected forest areas, and primary forests by country and biome; and examine the association between total forest area and measures of protection, per-capita income, and population. The overall findings suggest that countries are increasingly protecting forests of ecological significance at the global scale (7.7% of forests were protected in 1990 rising to 16.3% in 2015), with a strong upward trend in protected areas in the tropical domain (from 12% in 1990 to 26.3% in 2015). However, primary forest area has declined by 2.5% globally and by 10% in the tropics over the period 1990–2015 (using data for countries that reported in all years). Given that many species in the tropics are endemic to primary forests, losses in that climatic domain continue to be of concern, although the rate of decline appears to be slowing.Using multiple regression analysis, we find that a 1% increase in protected area or area designated for biodiversity conservation within a country is associated with an increase in total forest area in that country of about 0.03% (p<0.05). A 1% within-country increase in population density and per capita GDP are associated with a decrease in forest area of about 0.2% (p<0.01) and an increase in forest area of about 0.08% (p<0.05) respectively. Our findings also indicate that, since FRA is used as one mechanism for tracking progress toward goals like the AICHI Biodiversity Targets, country correspondents may require additional assistance toward reporting on primary forest, protected forest, and biodiversity conservation statistics.

Forest cover dynamics of shifting cultivation in the Democratic Republic of Congo: a remote sensing-based assessment for 2000–2010

Shifting cultivation has traditionally been practiced in the Democratic Republic of Congo by carving agricultural fields out of primary and secondary forest, resulting in the rural complex: a characteristic land cover mosaic of roads, villages, active and fallow fields and secondary forest. Forest clearing has varying impacts depending on where it occurs relative to this area: whether inside it, along its primary forest interface, or in more isolated primary forest areas. The spatial contextualization of forest cover loss is therefore necessary to understand its impacts and plan its management. We characterized forest clearing using spatial models in a Geographical Information System, applying morphological image processing to the Forets d’Afrique Central Evaluee par Teledetection product. This process allowed us to create forest fragmentation maps for 2000, 2005 and 2010, classifying previously homogenous primary forest into separate patch, edge, perforated, fragmented and core forest subtypes. Subsequently we used spatial rules to map the established rural complex separately from isolated forest perforations, tracking the growth of these areas in time. Results confirm that the expansion of the rural complex and forest perforations has high variance throughout the country, with consequent differences in local impacts on forest ecology and habitat fragmentation. Between 2000 and 2010 the rural complex grew by 10.2% (46 182 ha), increasing from 11.9% to 13.1% of the total land area (1.2% change) while perforated forest grew by 74.4% (23 856 ha), from 0.8% to 1.5%. Core forest decreased by 3.8% (54 852 ha), from 38% to 36.6% of the 2010 land area. Of particular concern is the nearly doubling of perforated forest, a land dynamic that represents greater spatial intrusion of forest clearing within core forest areas and a move away from the established rural complex.

How pervasive is biotic homogenization in human-modified tropical forest landscapes?

Land-cover change and ecosystem degradation may lead to biotic homogenization, yet our understanding of this phenomenon over large spatial scales and different biotic groups remains weak. We used a multi-taxa dataset from 335 sites and 36 heterogeneous landscapes in the Brazilian Amazon to examine the potential for landscape-scale processes to modulate the cumulative effects of local disturbances. Biotic homogenization was high in production areas but much less in disturbed and regenerating forests, where high levels of among-site and among-landscape β-diversity appeared to attenuate species loss at larger scales. We found consistently high levels of β-diversity among landscapes for all land cover classes, providing support for landscape-scale divergence in species composition. Our findings support concerns that β-diversity has been underestimated as a driver of biodiversity change and underscore the importance of maintaining a distributed network of reserves, including remaining areas of undisturbed primary forest, but also disturbed and regenerating forests, to conserve regional biota.

Responses of Aquatic Saproxylic Macroinvertebrates to Reduced-Impact Logging in Central Amazonia.

Reduced-impact logging (RIL) is an alternative land use because it reduces damage to forest cover in comparison with clear-cut practices. However, management practices adopted in RIL can affect wood availability and, consequently, fauna associated with dead wood during part of their life cycle (saproxylic). In this study, we evaluated whether aquatic saproxylic macroinvertebrates are affected by reduced-impact logging in Central Amazonia. We selected six streams in areas under reduced-impacted logging and six in primary forest areas and collected submerged woody debris. We did not find any differences in water pH, conductivity, and wood availability between reduced-impacted forest and primary forest streams. We found 248 saproxylic aquatic macroinvertebrates belonging to 37 taxa. We found five wood specialist (Dryops, Lutrochus, Stenochironomus, Oukuriella, and Endotribelos) and 32 generalists, totalling 98 and 150 individuals, respectively. In general, our results show that reduced-impact logging does not affect richness, abundance, and composition of saproxylic macroinvertebrates. The main explanation for this pattern is that management practices do not change important macroinvertebrate niche dimensions, including wood availability and the water's chemical and physical variables. Thus, controlled logging, such as applied in the area of the Central Amazonian streams studied, opens a new prospect for insect conservation and commercial exploitation of wood, which is not possible when clear-cut practices are adopted.

Opportunistic behaviour or desperate measure? Logging impacts may only partially explain terrestriality in the Bornean orang-utan Pongo pygmaeus morio

AbstractThere is a lack of information on how the Endangered Bornean orang-utan Pongo pygmaeus morio moves through its environment. Here we report on a camera-trapping study carried out over 2.5 years to investigate the orang-utan's terrestrial behaviour in Wehea Forest, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. We set 41 camera trap stations in an area of secondary forest, 36 in recently logged forest immediately adjacent to Wehea Forest, and 20 in an area of primary forest in the heart of Wehea Forest. A combined sampling effort of 28,485 trap nights yielded 296 independent captures of orang-utans. Of the three study sites, orang-utans were most terrestrial in recently logged forest, which may be only partially explained by breaks in the canopy as a result of logging activity. However, orang-utans were also terrestrial in primary forest, where there was a closed canopy and ample opportunity for moving through the trees. Our results indicate that orang-utans may be more terrestrial than previously thought and demonstrate opportunistic behaviour when moving through their environment, including using newly constructed logging roads for locomotion, possibly indicating some degree of resilience to human disturbance. This finding is important because of the potential role of sustainably logged forests for orang-utan conservation.

In Search of the Forest in Côte D’ivoire, parts 1 &amp; 2

Jusqu’à 1935, on pouvait encore voir en Côte d’Ivoire des forêts intactes le long des routes. Depuis, avec l’extension démesu- rée de la culture du café et du riz pluvial, le défrichement s’emballe. L’agriculteur fuyant les agoutis et le parasitisme fami- lial défriche dans des forêts éloignées. En 1957, il faut aller à sa recherche pour aper- cevoir la forêt primaire. L’ouverture d’une route la condamne en une décennie, et l’exploitation forestière ne passe qu’une fois. Avec la disparition des forêts denses humides africaines, les régions soudano- sahéliennes subiront une saison sèche plus longue. En outre, il importe d’établir des cartes d’aires de présence avant la disparition des forêts primaires. L’étude ici présentée vise à classifier la végétation fo- restière ivoirienne et repose sur le parcours de 12 transects en forêt dense humide. L’approche phytosociologique est en effet trop imparfaite pour analyser cette végéta- tion. Deux ensembles caractérisés par des groupes botaniques spécifiques ont été distingués : les « forêts denses semi-déci- dues humides à malvacées et ulmacées », et les « forêts denses humides à légumi- neuses sempervirentes ». Les espèces à grand pouvoir de dispersion, abondantes dans les brousses secondaires, notam- ment des genres Triplochiton ou Termina- lia, échappent cependant à cette classifi- cation. Les ruptures d’aires de présence chez certaines espèces tiennent ainsi à la dispersion des semences, mais aussi à la paléohistoire floristique et climatique. De même, la notion d’aire écologique ne peut s’appliquer pour les espèces rares ou pour les zones d’endémisme local. L’étude évoque également plusieurs espèces inva- sives indigènes, comme Scaphopetalum amoemum et Chidlowia sanguinea, dont le développement bloque la régénération forestière. Elle traite enfin de l’inclusion de savanes dans des forêts humides, dont l’origine est toujours édaphique et non pas anthropique.Résumé adapté par la rédaction de la revue.

Riparian reserves within oil palm plantations conserve logged forest leaf litter ant communities and maintain associated scavenging rates.

Summary The expansion of oil palm plantations at the expense of tropical forests is causing declines in many species and altering ecosystem functions. Maintaining forest‐dependent species and processes in these landscapes may therefore limit the negative impacts of this economically important industry. Protecting riparian vegetation may be one such opportunity; forest buffer strips are commonly protected for hydrological reasons, but can also conserve functionally important taxa and the processes they support.We surveyed leaf litter ant communities within oil palm‐dominated landscapes in Sabah, Malaysia, using protein baits. As the scavenging activity of ants influences important ecological characteristics such as nutrient cycling and soil structure, we quantified species‐specific rates of bait removal to examine how this process may change across land uses and establish which changes in community structure underlie observed shifts in activity.Riparian reserves had similar ant species richness, community composition and scavenging rates to nearby continuous logged forest. Reserve width and vegetation structure did not affect ant species richness significantly. However, the number of foraging individuals decreased with increasing reserve width, and scavenging rate increased with vegetation complexity.Oil palm ant communities were characterized by significantly lower species richness than logged forest and riparian reserves and also by altered community composition and reduced scavenging rates.Reduced scavenging activity in oil palm was not explained by a reduction in ant species richness, nor by replacement of forest ant species by those with lower per species scavenging rates. There was also no significant effect of land use on the scavenging activity of the forest species that persisted in oil palm. Rather, changes in scavenging activity were best explained by a reduction in the mean rate of bait removal per individual ant across all species in the community. Synthesis and applications. Our results suggest that riparian reserves are comparable to areas of logged forest in terms of ant community composition and ant‐mediated scavenging. Hence, in addition to protecting large continuous areas of primary and logged forest, maintaining riparian reserves is a successful strategy for conserving leaf litter ants and their scavenging activities in tropical agricultural landscapes.

National satellite-based humid tropical forest change assessment in Peru in support of REDD+ implementation

Transparent, consistent, and accurate national forest monitoring is required for successful implementation of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) programs. Collecting baseline information on forest extent and rates of forest loss is a first step for national forest monitoring in support of REDD+. Peru, with the second largest extent of Amazon basin rainforest, has made significant progress in advancing its forest monitoring capabilities. We present a national-scale humid tropical forest cover loss map derived by the Ministry of Environment REDD+ team in Peru. The map quantifies forest loss from 2000 to 2011 within the Peruvian portion of the Amazon basin using a rapid, semi-automated approach. The available archive of Landsat imagery (11 654 scenes) was processed and employed for change detection to obtain annual gross forest cover loss maps. A stratified sampling design and a combination of Landsat (30 m) and RapidEye (5 m) imagery as reference data were used to estimate the primary forest cover area, total gross forest cover loss area, proportion of primary forest clearing, and to validate the Landsat-based map. Sample-based estimates showed that 92.63% (SE = 2.16%) of the humid tropical forest biome area within the country was covered by primary forest in the year 2000. Total gross forest cover loss from 2000 to 2011 equaled 2.44% (SE = 0.16%) of the humid tropical forest biome area. Forest loss comprised 1.32% (SE = 0.37%) of primary forest area and 9.08% (SE = 4.04%) of secondary forest area. Validation confirmed a high accuracy of the Landsat-based forest cover loss map, with a producer’s accuracy of 75.4% and user’s accuracy of 92.2%. The majority of forest loss was due to clearing (92%) with the rest attributed to natural processes (flooding, fires, and windstorms). The implemented Landsat data processing and classification system may be used for operational annual forest cover loss updates at the national level for REDD+ applications.

ANÁLISE DE ATRUBUTOS FÍSICOS E QUÍMICOS DE SOLO SUBMETIDO A DIFERENTES MANEJOS NO SUDESTE PARAENSE

Com intuito de avaliar propriedades físicas e químicas do solo, submetido a diferentes manejos, em propriedade agrícola familiar do sudeste paraense, coletou-se amostras de solo em áreas de mata primária (MP), pastagem com leguminosas (PL) e pastagem solteira (PS) em duas profundidades (0 a 5 e 5 a 10 cm). Foram realizadas análises físicas: granulometria, Dp, Ds e Ptotal, assim como análises químicas: pH, Al3+, Ca2+, Mg2+ e Na+ trocáveis, K+ e P, H+Al e COT. Para verificar a significância das diferenças entre as médias dos tratamentos foi aplicado o teste Tukey a 5% de probabilidade, fazendo uso de delineamento inteiramente casualizado, com três tratamento (MP, PL e PS) e três repetições, as profundidades foram estudadas separadamente. PS apresentou maiores valores para DS e menores valores para Ptotal na profundidade 0 a 5 cm. Porém, na profundidade 5 a 10 cm, PL e PS não apresentaram diferença para esses atributos. PL apresentou o maior valor para pH do solo e também menores valores para Al+3 e H+Al. Não houve diferença significativa entre os tratamentos, e profundidade, para P, K+, Ca+2 e Mg+2, já o Na+ diferiu apenas na primeira profundidade, com MP apresentando o maior valor. MP apresentou maiores teores de COT. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Agricultura familiar. Leguminosas. Pastagem. Solo.

Sand fly fauna (Diptera: Psychodidae: Phlebotominae) in an area of leishmaniasis transmission in the municipality of Rio Branco, state of Acre, Brazil.

BackgroundNotifications concerning American Cutaneous Leishmaniasis have increased in recent years in the state of Acre, Brazil. Despite identification of distinct Leishmania species isolated from cutaneous lesions, there are still no records of visceral leishmaniasis in the state. However, studies on the sand fly fauna in this region are still limited.FindingsInsects were collected from April 2011 to April 2012, using HP light traps distributed in four residential areas and one recreational area in Rio Branco, Capital of the State of Acre in the Amazon region of Brazil. A total of 456 sand flies were collected, comprising 256 females and 200 males. Taxonomic identification revealed 16 Phlebotominae genera and 23 species, as follows: Trichophoromyia auraensis, Nyssomyia whitmani, Nyssomyia antunesi, Pressatia choti, Evandromyia saulensis, Evandromyia walkeri, Evandromyia begonae, Migonemyia migonei, Pintomyia serrana, Psychodopygus paraensis, Sciopemyia sordelii, Migonemyia pusilla, Pintomyia nevesi, Brumptomyia avellari, Micropygomyia acanthopharynx, Micropygomyia micropyga, Pintomyia odax, Lutzomyia sherlocki, Pressatia calcarata, Pressatia duncanae, Bichromomyia flaviscutellata, Evandromyia bourrouli and Evandromyia bacula. From this group, Tr. auraensis and Ny. whitmani were the most abundant species in both forested areas and the peridomiciliary environment.ConclusionsWe find that the sand fly fauna in the urban and peri urban areas of Rio Branco is very diverse comprising 23 species, as diverse as that in areas of primary forest. Some species, such as Nyssomyia whitmani, Ny. antunesi and Bichromomyia flaviscutellata are known vectors of parasites responsible for cutaneous leishmaniasis, and Trichophoromyia auraensis is a putative vector in this Amazonian region.

Land use and land cover change dynamics across the Brazilian Amazon: insights from extensive time-series analysis of remote sensing data.

Throughout the Amazon region, the age of forests regenerating on previously deforested land is determined, in part, by the periods of active land use prior to abandonment and the frequency of reclearance of regrowth, both of which can be quantified by comparing time-series of Landsat sensor data. Using these time-series of near annual data from 1973–2011 for an area north of Manaus (in Amazonas state), from 1984–2010 for south of Santarém (Pará state) and 1984–2011 near Machadinho d’Oeste (Rondônia state), the changes in the area of primary forest, non-forest and secondary forest were documented from which the age of regenerating forests, periods of active land use and the frequency of forest reclearance were derived. At Manaus, and at the end of the time-series, over 50% of regenerating forests were older than 16 years, whilst at Santarém and Machadinho d’Oeste, 57% and 41% of forests respectively were aged 6–15 years, with the remainder being mostly younger forests. These differences were attributed to the time since deforestation commenced but also the greater frequencies of reclearance of forests at the latter two sites with short periods of use in the intervening periods. The majority of clearance for agriculture was also found outside of protected areas. The study suggested that a) the history of clearance and land use should be taken into account when protecting deforested land for the purpose of restoring both tree species diversity and biomass through natural regeneration and b) a greater proportion of the forested landscape should be placed under protection, including areas of regrowth.

Práticas de uso e manejo tradicional de Carapa spp. (andiroba) na Reserva Extrativista do Rio Jutaí, Amazonas, Brasil

Na Reserva Extrativista (RESEX) do Rio Jutaí, Amazonas, os moradores têm manifestado expectativas e aspiram mudanças quanto ao manejo da andiroba (Carapa spp.). Na presente pesquisa, foram formuladas perguntas sobre as razões dessas mudanças e como elas estão acontecendo. Aspectos socioeconômicos e de manejo foram estudados em 31 unidades familiares de dez comunidades da RESEX. Utilizaram-se entrevistas semiestruturadas, observação participante e avaliação de tempo e esforço de trabalho. A população local atribuiu relevante significado para a espécie em razão do valor de uso, destacando-se as aplicações medicinais, na pesca de matrinxã (Brycon spp.) e de outras quatro espécies de peixe. O manejo da andiroba é realizado, principalmente, em áreas de floresta primária e é complementado pela maioria das famílias na forma de plantios, comercializando parte da produção no interior da RESEX. Análises multivariadas discriminaram um grupo que investe maior tempo e número de pessoas na coleta, tendo maior produção, no entanto com menor rendimento. Não existe tendência à especialização das atividades, pois as famílias são pluriativas. O fenômeno estudado se encaixa na proposta conceitual do neoextrativismo, na medida em que as práticas estão em transformação e incluem cultivo e beneficiamento.

English

Forest succession has been reported in forest plantations in tropical forests, but little is known about their successional dynamics because most studies have focused on succession in secondary forests. We assessed changes in species composition and stand structure in secondary and plantation forests in Kakamega rainforest in western Kenya. We used a nested experiment to collect data on tree species types, tree height and stem diameter at breast height from secondary forest stands, mixed indigenous plantations and indigenous and exotic monoculture plantations in three forest blocks. Data were analyzed for variation in species diversity, species similarity to the primary forest, stem density and basal area using analysis of variance in Genstat. The results indicated that species diversity and similarity to the primary forest were not different between secondary and plantation forests. However, successional species occupied all the canopy strata in secondary forests, but they occupied only the shrub and understorey layers of monoculture plantations, and the shrub, understorey and sub-canopy strata of mixed indigenous plantations. Mixed indigenous plantations had become nearly indistinguishable from secondary forests, but monoculture plantations maintained a plantation outlook. Old secondary forest had a significantly lower stem density than plantation forests, but their basal area was not significantly different. Middle-aged and young secondary forests had comparable stem density to plantation forests, but their basal area was significantly lower. The results confirmed that plantation forests are experiencing forest succession in tropical forests, their species composition and stand structure are comparable with secondary forests, but they differ in the emergence pattern of successional species and their distribution in forest canopy strata. Key words: Secondary succession, plantation forests, tropical rainforest, species composition, stand structure.&nbsp

The effect of land use change on transformation of relief and modification of soils in undulating loess area of East poland.

The change of primary forest areas into arable land involves the transformation of relief and modification of soils. In this study, we hypothesized that relatively flat loess area was largely transformed after the change of land use due to erosion. The modifications in soil pedons and distribution of soil properties were studied after 185 years of arable land use. Structure of pedons and solum depth were measured in 128 and soil texture and soil organic carbon in 39 points. Results showed that soils of noneroded and eroded profiles occupied 14 and 50%, respectively, and depositional soils 36% of the area. As a consequence, the clay, silt, and SOC concentration varied greatly in the plowed layer and subsoil. The reconstructed profiles of eroded soils and depositional soils without the accumulation were used to develop the map of past relief. The average inclination of slopes decreased from 4.3 to 2.2°, and slopes >5° vanished in the present topography. Total erosion was 23.8 Mg ha−1 year−1. From that amount, 88% was deposited within the study area, and 12% was removed outside. The study confirmed the hypothesis of the significant effect of the land use change on relief and soils in loess areas.

Avian biodiversity in multiple-use landscapes of the Brazilian Amazon

Habitat loss and degradation is the most pervasive threat to tropical biodiversity worldwide. Amazonia sits at the frontline of efforts to both improve the productivity of tropical agriculture and prevent the loss of biodiversity. To date our understanding of the biodiversity impacts of agricultural expansion in Amazonia is restricted to findings from small scale studies that typically assess the importance of a limited number of land-use types. Here we investigate local and landscape-scale responses of Amazonian avian assemblages to land-cover changes across a gradient of land-use intensity ranging from undisturbed primary forest to mechanised agriculture in 36 drainage catchments distributed across two large regions of the eastern Brazilian Amazon. We found that species richness of forest-associated birds declined progressively along this gradient, accompanied by marked shifts in assemblage composition. We found significant changes in species composition, but not richness, between primary forests that had been subject to different levels of disturbance from logging and fire. Secondary forests retained levels of species richness intermediate between primary forests and production areas, but lacked many forest-dependent species. Production areas (arable crops, cattle pastures and plantation forests) all retained far fewer species than any forest habitat, and were largely dominated by taxa commonly associated with open areas. Diversity partitioning revealed that species composition varied the most among undisturbed forest transects, and steadily decreased with increasing forest degradation and land-use intensity. Our results emphasise the importance of protecting both remaining areas of primary forest in private lands, as well as protecting the same forests from further disturbance events.

Using Habitat Characteristics to Predict Faunal Diversity in Tropical Production Forests

AbstractBiodiversity conservation in managed tropical forests is becoming increasingly important as forest area continues to decline. Accordingly, there is growing interest in developing conservation‐driven silvicultural prescriptions and identifying indicator habitat metrics (similar to indicator taxa) that could be easily assessed via routine vegetation sampling. Successfully achieving these goals, however, requires an understanding of how habitat characteristics affect biodiversity. The purpose of this study was to determine the associations between the species diversity of three taxa (ants, insectivorous bats, and dung beetles) and the habitat characteristics of hill dipterocarp production forests. We sampled both within (three samples) and adjacent to (six samples) six Virgin Jungle Reserves distributed throughout Peninsular Malaysia, and related habitat predictors to univariate diversity metrics (species richness and Shannon diversity) as well as multivariate compositional metrics. We found that influential predictors and directional effects differed across taxa. Ant diversity was most affected by stand density and canopy cover, and positively associated with both. Bat diversity was most strongly linked to primary forest area, with smaller reserves harboring greater bat diversity. Dung beetles were most affected by canopy cover and elevation, with greater diversity at lower elevation and with less canopy cover. Our multivariate analyses did not reveal any strong relationships between species composition and habitat variables. Overall, our results provide evidence that tropical forest structure is associated with biodiversity, but also suggest that it will be difficult to identify a single silvicultural prescription or landscape management strategy to maximize the diversity of all three taxa simultaneously.