Insights for the Conservation of Native Tree Species Gleaned From the Advance Regeneration Community in a Seasonally Dry Tropical Landscape

Abstract

The pervasive loss of primary forest in the tropics means that we need a better understanding of how transforming tropical landscapes affects plant regeneration if we wish to recover and maintain the diverse composition, structure, and function of tropical forest and landscapes. Advance regeneration (AR) is a crucial stage in forest dynamics; it includes all the immature woody plants that germinate and establish and may eventually form part of the forest as adults. In this study, we describe AR in three contiguous habitats in the tropics of central Veracruz, Mexico: a protected tropical semideciduous forest, a 17-year-old secondary forest (SF), and coastal dune scrub (DS). The community attributes of the AR were analyzed among and within the three habitats as were the relationship between its spatial variability and microenvironmental conditions and the attributes of the adult woody vegetation. In total, 3,195 individuals belonging to 95 species and 40 families were recorded in 90 quadrats of 25 m2 (sampling area: 2,250 m2). Brosimum alicastrum (Moraceae) was the most abundant species (1,498 individuals) and occurred in all three habitats. Despite having an adult community dominated by secondary species, the AR of the SF had a high degree of similarity with the primary forest. In the DS, late successional species were rare indicating it will likely take centuries for it to become a forest. Regardless of the severe fragmentation of the area and its nutrient-poor sandy soils, our results show that the seasonally dry tropical region of central Veracruz is highly resilient.