How long does the Atlantic Rain Forest take to recover after
a disturbance? Changes in species composition and
ecological features during secondary succession
Dieter Liebsch, Marcia C.M. Marques*, Renato Goldenberg
Universidade Federal do Parana
´
, Setor de Cie
ˆ
ncias Biolo
´
gicas, Departamento de Bota
ˆ
nica, Caixa Postal 19.031,
81531-980 Curitiba, Parana
´
, Brazil
ARTICLE INFO
Article history:
Received 5 July 2007
Received in revised form
4 April 2008
Accepted 11 April 2008
Available online 2 June 2008
Keywords:
Tropical forest
b-Diversity
Conservation
Endemism
Landscape fragmentation
ABSTRACT
We evaluated floristic and ecological changes in plant communities after disturbance in
Southern Atlantic Rain Forests, in the Brazilian states of Rio de Janeiro, Sa
˜
o Paulo, Parana
´
and Santa Catarina. We compiled data for 410 tree species from 18 forests ranging from
4 to 120 years after disturbance, and classified them by dispersal mode (animal vs. non-ani-
mal), successional group (pioneer vs. non-pioneer), vertical position (understorey vs. non-
understorey) and geographic distribution (Atlantic Forest vs. widespread). We found that
both geographical location and time since disturbance affect species distribution and
b-diversity. Regression analyses showed significant, positive and strong relations
(0.26 6 r
2
6 0.63; P < 0.05) between fragment age and species richness, proportion of animal
dispersed species, of non-pioneer species, of understorey species and with restricted distri-
bution. Applying our data to values found in literature we predict that a forest needs about
one to three hundred years to reach the proportion of animal-dispersed species (80% of the
species), the proportion of non-pioneer species (90%) and of understorey species (50%)
found in mature forests. On the other hand much more time is necessary (between one
and four thousand years) to reach the endemism levels (40% of the species) that exist in
mature forests. Our findings indicate that disturbance results in significant changes in spe-
cies composition (decrease in endemic species) and ecological guilds (decrease in zoochory
and in non-pioneer and understorey species), but forests can gradually recover over time
spans of hundreds of years.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The Atlantic Rain Forest once covered almost all of the Brazil-
ian coastal zones of the approximately 1,350,000 km
2
that ex-
isted before the Portuguese colonization in the 1500s less
than 7% of the original forests remained in the early 2000s
(SOS Mata Atlaˆntica INPE, 2002). The Atlantic Rain Forest is
considered a hotspot for biodiversity conservation, due to
its species richness (both plant and animal species) and high
level of endemism (Myers et al., 2000). A recent study esti-
mated that this biome is home to approximately 8000 ende-
mic species of plants, 73 of birds, 160 of mammals, 60 of
reptiles and 153 of amphibians (Myers et al., 2000). Logging
and clearing the forest for agriculture have lead to high levels
of fragmentation and subsequent species extinctions (Morel-
lato and Haddad, 2000).
This forest has floristic affinities with other wet forests,
like those in the Amazon Basin and the Brazilian plateau
0006-3207/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2008.04.013
* Corresponding author: Tel.: +55 41 3361 1686; fax: +55 41 3266 2042.
E-mail address: mmarques@ufpr.br (M.C.M. Marques).
BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION
141 (2008) 1717– 1725
available at www.sciencedirect.com
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biocon