Distribution of juveniles of tree species along a canopy closure gradient in a tropical cloud forest of the Venezuelan Andes

doi:10.3832/ifor1568-008

Distribution of juveniles of tree species along a canopy closure gradient in a tropical cloud forest of the Venezuelan Andes

Ana Quevedo-Rojas⁽¹⁾ , Mauricio Jerez-Rico⁽²⁾, Teresa Schwarzkopf Kratzer⁽³⁾, Carlos García-Núñez⁽³⁾

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, Volume 9, Issue 3, Pages 363-369 (2015)
doi: https://doi.org/10.3832/ifor1568-008
Published: Dec 08, 2015 - Copyright © 2015 SISEF

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Cloud forests represent a minor portion of the world forests, though outstanding in terms of biodiversity, endemisms, and environmental services provided. Understanding the factors that drive the regeneration and species composition of these forests, and in particular how light availability affects the patterns of juvenile tree distribution in the understory, is critical for conservation and restoration programs. In this study, we determined the range-size and overlap of the abundance distribution of juveniles for 20 tree species in an Andean tropical cloud forest in Venezuela along a gradient of percentage canopy openness (%CO) used as a surrogate of light availability. The observed distribution of %CO was then compared with a bounded null model of community structure in order to test light partitioning as a driver of tree species’ coexistence. We measured %CO using hemispherical photography and the abundance and size of juvenile trees in 280 plots of 1-m radius spread over a 32 ha forest area. The distribution of sites was skewed towards the lower end of the %CO gradient (0.5 to 12.8%), while species abundance sharply diminished at both ends of the gradient. Nevertheless, 15 out of 20 species had a non-random distribution in relation to %CO, with many species concentrated near the lower side of the gradient. The observed pattern of species’ overlap was within the 95% confidence limits for the average overlap expected under the bounded null model. These patterns indicate that low canopy openness is the rule in this forest, in spite of the scattered tree-fall gaps, and suggest that light partitioning does not determine the tree community structure at the juvenile stage. High redundancy in light requirements among juveniles of tree species may have a positive effect on species coexistence in cloud forests, thus maintaining a high species diversity. However, other factors such as recruitment limitation and differential growth/carbon-gain among species at the juvenile stage along the light gradient could contribute to the high diversity of these ecosystems.

Keywords

Natural Regeneration, Light Availability, Understory, Shade Tolerance, Hemispherical Photography, Null Models

Authors’ address

(1)

Facultad de Ciencias Forestales y Ambientales, Escuela Técnica Superior Forestal (ETSUFOR), Universidad de Los Andes (ULA), Conjunto Forestal, Mérida (Venezuela)

(2)

Facultad de Ciencias Forestales y Ambientales, Centro de Estudios Forestales y Ambientales de Postgrado (CEFAP), Universidad de Los Andes, Conjunto Forestal, Mérida (Venezuela)

(3)

Facultad de Ciencias, Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales y Ecológicas (ICAE), Universidad de Los Andes, Conjunto Forestal, Mérida (Venezuela)

Corresponding author

Ana Quevedo-Rojas
anamer2@gmail.com

Citation

Quevedo-Rojas A, Jerez-Rico M, Schwarzkopf Kratzer T, García-Núñez C (2015). Distribution of juveniles of tree species along a canopy closure gradient in a tropical cloud forest of the Venezuelan Andes. iForest 9: 363-369. - doi: 10.3832/ifor1568-008

Academic Editor

Arthur Gessler

Paper history

Received: Jan 19, 2015
Accepted: Jul 31, 2015

First online: Dec 08, 2015
Publication Date: Jun 01, 2016
Publication Time: 4.33 months

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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