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Testing heterogeneity–diversity relationships in tropical forest restoration

  • Community ecology - Original research
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Abstract

Restoring small-scale habitat heterogeneity in highly diverse systems, like tropical forests, is a conservation challenge and offers an excellent opportunity to test factors affecting community assembly. We investigated whether (1) the applied nucleation restoration strategy (planting tree islands) resulted in higher habitat heterogeneity than more homogeneous forest restoration approaches, (2) increased heterogeneity resulted in more diverse tree recruitment, and (3) the mean or coefficient of variation of habitat variables best explained tree recruitment. We measured soil nutrients, overstory and understory vegetation structure, and tree recruitment at six sites with three 5- to 7-year-old restoration treatments: control (no planting), planted tree islands, and conventional, mixed-species tree plantations. Canopy openness and soil base saturation were more variable in island treatments than in controls and plantations, whereas most soil nutrients had similar coefficients of variation across treatments, and bare ground was more variable in control plots. Seedling and sapling species density were equivalent in plantations and islands, and were substantially higher than in controls. Species spatial turnover, diversity, and richness were similar in island and plantation treatments. Mean canopy openness, rather than heterogeneity, explained the largest proportion of variance in species density. Our results show that, whereas canopy openness and soil base saturation are more heterogeneous with the applied nucleation restoration strategy, this pattern does not translate into greater tree diversity. The lack of a heterogeneity–diversity relationship is likely due to the fact that recruits respond more strongly to mean resource gradients than variability at this early stage in succession, and that seed dispersal limitation likely reduces the available species pool. Results show that planting tree islands facilitates tree recruitment to a similar degree as intensive plantation-style restoration strategies.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful for help in the field from J. A. Rosales, F. O. Brenes, C. Ericson, M. Chaves, and P. Rosales. We would also like to thank T. Cornelisse, E. Olimpi, D. Schweizer, T. Young, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this paper. Financial support for this project was provided by NSF (DEB 05-15577; DEB 09-18112), and the Earthwatch Foundation. We greatly appreciate the various landowners providing access to their lands. The experiments comply with the current laws of Costa Rica, where the study was conducted.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA

    Karen D. Holl, Victoria M. Stout & J. Leighton Reid

  2. Las Cruces Biological Station, Organization for Tropical Studies, Apdo. 73-8257, San Vito, Costa Rica

    Rakan A. Zahawi

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  1. Karen D. Holl
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  2. Victoria M. Stout
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  3. J. Leighton Reid
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  4. Rakan A. Zahawi
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Correspondence to Karen D. Holl.

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Communicated by Truman Young.

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Holl, K.D., Stout, V.M., Reid, J.L. et al. Testing heterogeneity–diversity relationships in tropical forest restoration. Oecologia 173, 569–578 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-013-2632-9

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