Landslide Revegetation related data sets

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Landslide are among the most severe rainforest disturbances (Garwood et al. 1979, Hubbell & Foster 1986, Sousa 1984, Waide & Lugo 1992, Walker et al. in press), generating extreme abiotic spatial gradients (Fernández & Myster 1995) and exposing soil and parent material (Guariguata 1990). Landslides contain patches of vegetation surrounded by a matrix of soil or bare substrate (Dalling 1994, Myster & Fernández 1995). In addition, they often undergo recurrent localized disturbance either by resliding or by treefall at the edge of the landslide (Hartshorn 1980), thereby adding new plant preopagules, soil or organic material after the initial slippage. These landslide feature, coupled with interactions between patches of similar soil or vetetation (including seed dispersal, shading, litter deposition and vegetative reproduction), strongly suggets that landslide are a patch-dynamic system (Hupp 1983, Pickett & White 1985).

Changes in the composition and abundance of species within these patches over space and time can be considered successional pathways (Austin 1977, Myster & Pickett 1990). Analysis of the pathways can indicate (i) spatial and temporal variation in initial species richness and rate of species turnover (Myster & Pickett 1994), (ii) important species that define pathways and may suggest key regeneration strategies, (iii) community convergence or divergence, and (iv) the effects of past history and land-use (Myster &Pickett 1990, 1994).

Here we use permanent plot data sampled from 16 landslide to documents temporal successional pathways in landslide patches (without the use of a chronosequence, cf. Guariguata 1990) and address the following questions: (1) What are the successional pathways of landslide and what species define them? How much pathway variation of individual plots is there within these landslides? (2) How similar are pathways among landslide? Is there any evidence that, with time, landslides either converge to a common vegetative enpoint or slow in the rate of successional change?

Created By: Eda C. Melendez-Colom (emelendez@lternet.edu )
Last Modified On: January 20, 2006