Establishment of tree seedlings in the understory of restoration plantations: natural regeneration and enrichment plantings

Author(s)

Bertacchi, Maria Isabel F. ^[1] ; Amazonas, Nino T. ^[2] ; Brancalion, Pedro H. S. ^[2] ; Brondani, Gilvano E. ^[3] ; de Oliveira, Anderson C. S. ^[4] ; de Pascoa, Marcelino A. R. ; Rodrigues, Ricardo R. ^[1]

Affiliation

^[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Escola Super Agr Luiz de Queiroz, Dept Ciencias Biol, BR-13418900 Piracicaba, SP - Brazil

^[2] Univ Sao Paulo, Escola Super Agr Luiz de Queiroz, Dept Ciencias Florestais, BR-13418900 Piracicaba, SP - Brazil

^[3] Univ Fed Mato Grosso, Dept Engn Florestal, BR-78060900 Cuiaba, MT - Brazil

^[4] Univ Fed Mato Grosso, Dept Estat, BR-78060900 Cuiaba, MT - Brazil

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: RESTORATION ECOLOGY; v. 24, n. 1, p. 100-108, JAN 2016.
• Web of Science Citations: 32

Abstract

Little is known about the potential of restoration plantations to provide appropriate understory conditions to support the establishment of seeds arriving from neighboring native forests. In this article, we investigated how seedling establishment is affected in the understory of restoration sites of different ages and assessed some of the potential environmental factors controlling this ecological process. We first compared the density and richness of native tree seedlings among 10-, 22-, and 55-year-old restoration plantations within the Atlantic Forest region of southeastern Brazil. Then, we undertook a seed addition experiment in each study site, during the wet season, and compared seedling emergence, survival, and biomass on local versus old-growth forest soil (transferred from a reference ecosystem), in order to test whether local substrate could hamper seedling establishment. As expected, the oldest restoration site had higher density and richness of spontaneously regenerating seedlings. However, seedling establishment was less successful both in the oldest restoration planting and using substrate transferred from a reference ecosystem, where emergence and survival were lower, but surviving seedlings grew better. We attribute these results to lower light availability for seedlings in the understory of the oldest site and speculate that higher incidence of pathogens on old-growth forest soil may have increased seedling mortality. We conclude that the understory of young restoration plantations provides suitable microsite conditions at the early establishment phases for the spontaneous regeneration or enrichment planting of native trees. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 13/50718-5 - Ecological restoration of riparian forests, native forest of economic production and of degraded forest fragments (in APP and RL) based on restoration ecology of reference ecosystems in order to scientifically test the precepts of the New Brazilian Forest Code
• Grantee: Ricardo Ribeiro Rodrigues
• Support Opportunities: BIOTA-FAPESP Program - Thematic Grants
• FAPESP's process: 09/12663-9 - Microsites as filters to the establishment of tree species regenerants under restored areas
• Grantee: Maria Isabel Ferreira Bertacchi
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master