Multidimensional Recovery of Young Secondary Forests in Human-Modified Tropical Landscapes

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Environmental Science
• Conservation Biology

Background:

• Secondary succession, the recovery of ecosystems after disturbance, is crucial in the Anthropocene due to widespread land-use and climate change.
• Predicting forest successional trajectories is challenging due to limited understanding of early-stage recovery and variations across different socio-ecological systems and forest attributes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze early secondary forest succession (first 5 years) across diverse tropical landscapes.
• To investigate how socio-ecological systems, land-use intensity, and forest types influence successional trajectories and multiple forest attributes.

Main Methods:

• Established 122 permanent plots in abandoned agricultural fields across six tropical landscapes in Australia, Ghana, and Mexico.
• Monitored plots annually for up to 5 years, quantifying 12 forest attributes (structure, diversity, functional composition, biotic interactions).
• Utilized statistical analyses to determine the variation in successional trajectories explained by landscape, country, and forest type.

Main Results:

• Six landscapes (socio-ecological systems) explained a significant portion (average 54%) of the variation in successional trajectories.
• Landscape context and local land-use intensity explained an additional 39% of variation.
• Countries had a greater impact than forest type, with lower land-use intensity landscapes showing faster succession due to vegetation legacies.
• Forest structure and diversity showed deterministic increases, while functional composition and biotic interactions varied with forest type, indicating environmental filtering.

Conclusions:

• Early secondary succession in tropical forests is predominantly a socio-ecological process, heavily influenced by landscape context and human land-use history.
• Understanding the interplay between social factors (country, land-use intensity) and ecological factors (forest type) is vital for predicting forest recovery.
• Integrating early succession dynamics, socio-ecological systems, and multiple forest recovery dimensions is essential for effective management of human-modified tropical landscapes.