Are biotic and abiotic factors and seedling mechanical damage in forest-edge fragments always different from the interior
2010
Marques, Thamy Evellini Dias | Beijo, Luiz Alberto | Ramos, Flavio Nunes
The regeneration of fragments and adjacent landscape depends on, among others factors, seedling establishment, both in the interior and at the edge. This work considers differences between the edge and fragment interior in (1) environmental descriptors (canopy openness, temperature, soil moisture, bamboo and liana coverage and litterfall), (2) the total number of seedlings damaged and (3) the type of seedling damage. The present study was carried out in four Atlantic forest fragments in south-eastern Brazil. Environmental descriptors and artificial seedling damage were measured in 10 plots, 10×10m each, in each forest fragment, i.e. five at the edges and five in the interior. Litterfall was the main cause of seedling damage in the present study. Bamboo and liana coverage, litterfall, soil moisture, canopy openness, minimal and maximal temperature and temperature amplitude, as well as the type and quantity of damage did not differ between the edge and the fragment interior. Temperature, however, was higher in the interior than in the edge fragments. The lack of difference between the edge and interior fragments was probably due to the reduced size of the remnants of the Atlantic forest studied, resulting from an intense internal anthropogenic impact on them and the early onset of this landscape fragmentation, which is quite old (~200 years).
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