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12 December 2011 Post-logging recovery of animal-dispersed trees in a tropical forest site in north-east India
Nandini Velho, Meghna Krishnadas
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Abstract

Selective logging is known to alter the structural and community composition of tropical forests and may disrupt plant-frugivore interactions. We hypothesized that even after a sufficient period of recovery, logged areas will not possess as complete a suite of species as an unlogged forest, the differences being more marked for biotically-dispersed species. Species of this functional group are expected to occur at lower densities, have lower species richness and diversity, and be smaller in logged forests. To quantify structural and functional differences in tree communities, we sampled 120 randomly placed plots, 60 each in logged and unlogged forest sites. We found significant differences in species richness and diversity between logged and intact forest. Within biotically-dispersed species, bird dispersed species showed a significant reduction in species richness. Consistent with previous studies, trees in logged forests were smaller, although overall density was not different between the two treatments. We posit that selective logging might have pervasive effects on functional aspects of tropical tree communities, which appear to persist even after two decades of logging cessation.

© 2011 Nandini Velho and Meghna Krishnadas. This is an open access paper. We use the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ - The license permits any user to download, print out, extract, archive, and distribute the article, so long as appropriate credit is given to the authors and source of the work. The license ensures that the published article will be as widely available as possible and that the article can be included in any scientific archive. Open Access authors retain the copyrights of their papers. Open access is a property of individual works, not necessarily journals or publishers.
Nandini Velho and Meghna Krishnadas "Post-logging recovery of animal-dispersed trees in a tropical forest site in north-east India," Tropical Conservation Science 4(4), 405-419, (12 December 2011). https://doi.org/10.1177/194008291100400404
Received: 9 August 2011; Accepted: 30 October 2011; Published: 12 December 2011
KEYWORDS
biotic dispersal
north-east India
selective logging
tropical tree communities
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