What almost 40 years of monitoring reveal about the dynamics and sustainability of a conservation unit in the Atlantic Forest

• Grant number: 22/03305-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2022
• End date: October 30, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology - Ecosystems Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Ricardo Ribeiro Rodrigues
• Grantee: Thiago Almeida Bueno
• Supervisor: Franciscus Johannes Jozef Maria Bongers
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands
• Associated to the scholarship: 20/05533-0 - 36 years of dynamics of one hectare of a semideciduous seasonal forest, BP.IC

Abstract

Forest fragments protected as Conservation Units (CU) are essential for the maintenance of biodiversity, for the provision of ecosystem services, and, especially, for forest restoration initiatives, where they can be taken as reference vegetation. However, the monitoring of forest dynamics for almost 40 years of a CU, protected since the 80s, located in the state of São Paulo and belonging to the Atlantic Forest, seems to reveal a systematic disruption in its shrub-tree population, with a great reduction in the number of individuals and basal area, threatening its perpetuation over time. The main objective of this study is to deepen how this disruption is occurring and what is its impact on biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services, seeking to accomplish this through robust and current analyzes under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Frans Bongers through an internship in the FEM group at WUR. For these analyses, in a permanent plot of 1ha installed in 1983, shrub-tree individuals, with a stem circumference e 15cm (1.30m from the ground), had their circumferences and heights collected, their species identified and their locations mapped during the year 2020. These same data were collected in 4 more measurements since 1983, composing a valuable database of 37 years of follow-up. The patterns identified from the analysis will be compared with other large urban and non-urban fragments present in the Newfor project database (2018/18416-2), to which this project is linked. This project is expected to contribute to the strengthening of scientific bases for good public policies for the conservation and restoration of forest fragments, as well as to seek ways to direct the studied fragment to a trajectory that reverses this trend of disruption in favor of biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services. (AU)