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110 results for “Forest recovery”
Rapid ant community re-assembly in a Neotropical forest: recovery dynamics and land-use legacy
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Data for: Stratification and recovery time jointly shape ant functional re-assembly in a Neotropical forest
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Data from: Active restoration accelerates recovery of tropical forest bird assemblages over two decades
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Data from: Assessing the recovery gap in forest restoration within the Brazilian Atlantic Forest
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Turf algae redefine the chemical landscape of temperate reefs, limiting kelp forest recovery
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Data from: A changing climate is snuffing out post-fire recovery in montane forests
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Active restoration fosters better recovery of tropical rainforest birds than natural regeneration in degraded forest fragments
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Sunflower sea star predation on urchins can facilitate kelp forest recovery
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Where are the trees? Extent, configuration, and drivers of poor forest recovery 30 years after the 1988 Yellowstone Fires.
Postfire recovery of fire-adapted forests remains uncertain as climate and fire regimes continue to change. Areas of poor postfire tree regeneration following late-20th-century fires may reveal characteristics associated with increased vulnerability to forest decline. However, sufficient time must have elapsed and pre- and postfire forest cover must be compared to distinguish areas that have not recovered. We used remotely sensed data and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to detect areas of poor forest recovery across >250,000 ha of area burned as stand-replacing fire 30 years after the 1988 Yellowstone fires. We asked three questions: (1) What is the extent and configuration of sparse and reduced forest recovery? (2) How do vegetation characteristics compare between areas of sparse and reduced recovery vs. recovered forest? (3) What environmental characteristics explain the distribution and patch size of sparse and reduced recovery? We related postfire (2013-14) NDVI to field-measured stem density to establish an NDVI threshold of sparse tree regeneration, and we contrasted pre- (1986-87) and postfire (2018-19) NDVI as a proxy for pre- and postfire forest cover. Sparse and reduced forest recovery occupied ~41,000 ha across the burned area, about half of which was ≥150 m from ex situ seed sources. Patches of poor recovery were generally large, with ~13,400 ha in patches ≥50 ha and an area-weighted mean patch size of 97 ha. Vegetation was short (<2 m) in areas of sparse and reduced recovery and non-evergreen biomass was three times greater than in recovered forest. Sparse and reduced recovery was more likely at high elevations, on steep slopes, and far from ex situ seed sources, and patches were larger at high elevations and far from seed sources. It took 20 years for sparse and reduced recovery to be distinguishable from recovered forest using NDVI, suggesting a time lag before remotely sensed data can detect alternative pathways of postfire forest r
Recovery of European temperate forests after large and severe disturbances
<p><span>As climate change progresses, there is increasing concern that large and severe disturbances may diminish the resilience of forest ecosystems and alter their recovery dynamics. We investigated recovery of temperate forests in Europe following large and severe disturbance events (more than 70 % canopy cover reduction in patches larger than 1 ha) that span a time since disturbance range of one to five decades. Across a ground-based plot network at 143 sites, featuring various forest types and management practices, subjected to 28 disturbance events, including windthrow, fire, and bark beetle, we studied post-disturbance tree density and composition, which are key indicators of forest resilience. We used this dataset to qualitatively assess forest recovery in structure and composition by comparing plot-level post-disturbance height-weighted densities with site-specific pre-disturbance densities. Additionally, we analyzed ecological drivers of post-windthrow tree density, including forest management, topography, and bioclimate, using a series of generalized additive models. The present dataset includes the plot-level data necessary to carry out the aforementioned analyses.</span></p>
Assessing Restoration Strategies for the Recovery of Colombian Moist Forests: A Meta-Analysis
<p>Dataset from a systematic review conducted on October 3, 2023, in which we searched for indexed articles that studied successions in humid forests in Colombia following various management activities, such as soil remediation, planting of native or exotic species, nucleation, silvopastoral or agroforestry systems, or natural regeneration. The studies selected reported the mean and standard deviation of vegetation structure metrics (basal area, tree density, canopy cover, and height), species richness (plants, birds, and insects), soil nutrients, and leaf litter in successional stages and conserved native forests. We used this dataset to develop the under-review manuscript submitted in the Restoration Ecology Journal.</p>
Data for 'Using 40 years of spot measurements to assess stream temperature response and recovery for different harvesting systems in northern hardwood forests' by Jason Leach, Danielle Hudson and R. Dan Moore. Submitted to Hydrological Processes.
<p>This dataset contains spot stream temperature measurements taken at 5 headwater streams draining forested hillslopes (C31, C32, C33, C34, C35) in the Turkey Lakes Watershed, approximately 65 km northwest of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.</p>
Data from: Ocean warming undermines the recovery resilience of New England kelp forests following a fishery-induced trophic cascade
<p>Ecological theory predicts that kelp forests structured by trophic cascades should experience a recovery and persistence of their foundation species when herbivores become rare. Yet, climate change may be altering the outcomes of top-down forcing in kelp forests, especially those located in regions that have rapidly warmed in recent decades, such as the Gulf of Maine. Here, using data collected annually from 30+ sites spanning >350 km of coastline, we explored the dynamics of Maine's kelp forests in the ~20 years after a fishery-induced elimination of sea urchin herbivores. Although forests (dominated by <em>Saccharina latissima</em> and <em>Laminaria digitata</em>) had broadly returned to Maine in the late 20th century, we found that forests in northeast Maine have since experienced slow but significant declines in kelp, and forest persistence in the northeast was juxtaposed by a rapid, widespread collapse in the southwest. Forests collapsed in the southwest apparently because ocean warming has – directly and indirectly – made this area inhospitable to kelp. Indeed, when modeling drivers of change using causal techniques from econometrics, we discovered that unusually high summer water temperatures the year prior, unusually high spring water temperatures, and high sea urchin densities each negatively impacted kelp abundance. Furthermore, the relative power and absolute impact of these drivers varied geographically. Our findings reveal that ocean warming is redefining the outcomes of top-down forcing in this system, whereby herbivore removal no longer predictably leads to a sustained dominance of kelp – the ecosystem's foundation – but instead has led to a waning dominance (northeast) or the rise of a novel phase state defined by "turf" algae (southwest). Such findings indicate that limiting climate change and managing for low herbivore abundances will be essential for preventing further loss of the vast forests that still exist in northeastern Maine. They also more broadly highlight that climate change is "rewriting the rules" of nature, and thus that ecological theory and practice must be revised to account for shifting species and processes.</p>
Data from: Limited biomass recovery from gold mining in Amazonian forests
<ol> <li>Gold mining has rapidly increased across the Amazon Basin in recent years, especially in the Guiana shield, where it is responsible for >90% of total deforestation. However, the ability of forests to recover from gold mining activities remains largely unquantified. </li> <li>Forest inventory plots were installed on recently abandoned mines in two major mining regions in Guyana, and re-censused 18 months later, to provide the first ground-based quantification of gold mining impacts on Amazon forest biomass recovery. </li> <li>We found that woody biomass recovery rates on abandoned mining pits and tailing ponds are amongst the lowest ever recorded for tropical forests, with close to no woody biomass recovery after 3-4 years. </li> <li>On the overburden sites (i.e. areas not mined but where excavated soil is deposited), however, aboveground biomass recovery rates (0.4 - 3.5 Mg ha<sup>-1</sup> yr<sup>-1</sup>) were within the range of those recorded in other secondary forests across the Neotropics following abandonment of pastures and agricultural lands. </li> <li>Our results suggest that forest recovery is more strongly limited by severe mining-induced depletion of soil nutrients, especially nitrogen, than by mercury contamination, due to slowing of growth in nutrient-stripped soils. </li> <li>We estimate that the slow recovery rates in mining pits and ponds currently reduce carbon sequestration across Amazonian secondary forests by ~21,000 t C yr<sup>-1</sup>, compared to the carbon that would have accumulated following more traditional land uses such as agriculture or pasture. </li> <li> <i>Synthesis and applications</i>. To achieve large-scale restoration targets, Guyana and other Amazonian countries will be challenged to remediate previously mined lands. The recovery process is highly dependent on nitrogen availability rather than mercury contamination, affecting woody biomass regrowth. The significant recovery in overburden zones indicates that one potential active remediation strategy to promote biomass recovery may be to back-fill mining pits and ponds with excavated soil. </li> </ol>
Data from: Influences of fire–vegetation feedbacks and post-fire recovery rates on forest landscape vulnerability to altered fire regimes
1. In the context of on-going climatic warming, forest landscapes face increasing risk of conversion to non-forest vegetation through alteration of their fire regimes and their post-fire recovery dynamics. However, this pressure could be amplified or dampened, depending on how fire-driven changes to vegetation feed back to alter the extent or behavior of subsequent fires. 2. Here we develop a mathematical model to formalize understanding of how fire–vegetation feedbacks and the time to forest recovery following high-severity (i.e., stand-replacing) fire affect the extent and stability of forest cover across landscapes facing altered fire regimes. We evaluate responses to increasing burn rates while varying the direction (negative vs. positive) of fire–vegetation feedbacks under a continuum of values for feedback strength and post-fire recovery time to determine how interactions among these variables produce thresholds and tipping points in landscape responses to changing fire regimes. 3. Where the early-seral vegetation is less fire-prone than older forests, negative feedbacks limited the reductions in forest cover in response to increased fire frequency or slower forest recovery. By contrast, positive feedbacks (more flammable early-seral vegetation) produced a tipping point beyond which increased burn rates or slower forest recovery drove extensive forest loss. 4. With negative feedbacks, the rates of forest loss and expansion in response to variation in fire frequency were similar. However, where feedbacks are positive, the conversion from predominantly forested to non-forested conditions in response to increased fire frequency was faster than the re-expansion of forest cover following a return to the initial burn rate. Strengthening the positive feedbacks increased this asymmetry. 5. Synthesis. Our analyses elucidate how fire–vegetation feedbacks and post-fire recovery rates interact to affect the trajectories and rates of landscape response to altered fire regimes. We illustrate the vulnerability of ecosystems with positive fire–vegetation feedbacks to climate change-driven increases in fire activity, especially where post-fire recovery is slow. Although negative feedbacks initially provide resistance to forest loss with increasing burn rates, this resistance is eventually overwhelmed with sufficient increases to burn rates relative to recovery times.
Landslide age, elevation and residual vegetation determine tropical montane forest canopy recovery and biomass accumulation after landslide disturbances in the Peruvian Andes
<p>Landslides are common natural disturbances in tropical montane forests. While the geomorphic drivers of landslides in the Andes have been studied, factors controlling post-landslide forest recovery across the steep climatic and topographic gradients characteristic of tropical mountains are poorly understood.</p> <p>Here we use a LiDAR-derived canopy height map coupled with a 25-year landslide time series map to examine how landslide, topographic, and biophysical factors, along with residual vegetation, affect canopy height and heterogeneity in regenerating landslides. We also calculate aboveground biomass accumulation rates and estimate the time for landslides to recover to mature forest biomass levels.</p> <p>We find that age and elevation are the biggest determinants of forest recovery, and that the jump-start in regeneration that residual vegetation provides lasts for at least 18 years. Our estimates of time to biomass recovery (31.6-37.1 years) are surprisingly rapid, and as a result we recommend that future research pair LiDAR with hyperspectral imagery to estimate forest aboveground biomass in frequently disturbed landscapes.</p> <p>Synthesis: Using a high-resolution LiDAR dataset and a time-series inventory of 608 landslides distributed across a wide elevational gradient in Andean montane forest, we show that age and elevation are the most influential predictors of forest canopy height and canopy variability. Other features of landslides, in particular the presence of residual vegetation, shape post-landslide regeneration trajectories. LiDAR allows for a detailed analysis of forest structural recovery across large landscapes and numbers of disturbances, and provides a reasonable upper bound on aboveground biomass accumulation rates. However, because this method does not capture the effect of compositional change through succession on aboveground biomass, wherein high-wood density species gradually replace light-wooded pioneer species, it overestimates aboveground biomass. Given previously estimated stem turnover rates along this elevational gradient, we posit that aboveground biomass recovery takes at least three times as long as our recovery time estimates based on LiDAR-derived structure alone.</p>
Afrotropical secondary forests exhibit fast diversity and functional recovery, but slow compositional and carbon recovery after shifting cultivation
<p>Question: Human disturbance is increasingly affecting forest dynamics across the tropics. Forests can recover via natural secondary succession to pre-disturbance levels of biodiversity, species composition, and ecosystem carbon stocks. Central Africa will be subject to increasingly high shifting cultivation pressure in the next decades, but succession trajectories of these ecosystem properties are still poorly known for the Congo basin. We addressed two questions: (1) how does taxonomic and functional composition and diversity shift? (2) How fast do aboveground carbon stocks recover during secondary succession in tropical forests?</p> <p>Location: Central Congo basin</p> <p><span>Methods: We conducted an inventory of trees (DBH ≥10 cm diameter), measured species traits and soil texture and carbon content in 18 plots, located along six secondary succession stages (i.e. from agricultural to old growth forest sites). We measured tree diameter, height for 20% of trees distributed across diameter classes, wood traits from all species, and leaf traits from species that contributed to 85% of the plot basal area.</span></p> <p>Results: We showed that secondary forests recover relatively fast in terms of tree species diversity, alpha functional diversity, and fine root carbon, with near-old-growth forest values after six decades past disturbance, while floristic composition exhibited slower recovery. Secondary forests only partially shifted from acquisitive to a conservative life-history, with shifts in leaf traits being largely decoupled from wood traits. Only 43% of above-ground carbon recovered after 60 years of forest regrowth, potentially through a slow recovery of the large-sized tree stems that dominate carbon stocks of old-growth forests.</p> <p>Conclusions: Our findings underline the capacity of Afrotropical forests to recover species and alpha functional diversity after clear-cutting through shifting cultivation. Simultaneously, old-growth forests harbors a particular floristic community and store a large quantity of carbon with much longer recovery trajectories, stressing the need for conservation of these forests in the Congo Basin.</p>
Landscape structure, predictability of forest regeneration trajectories, and recovery rate on secondary forests
<p>Abandonment of agricultural lands promotes the global expansion of secondary forests, which are critical for preserving biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services. Such roles largely depend, however, on two essential successional attributes, trajectory and recovery rate, which are expected to depend on landscape-scale forest cover in non- linear ways. This dataset is the synthesis outcome of 22 independent databases from studies of woody plant species recovery as part of the research project entitled "Impacts of landscape structure on secondary tropical forest regeneration". This work aimed to understand the effect of landscape-level disturbance on forest regeneration, specifically through the predictability of trajectories and the recovery rate of these forests.</p> <p>Using a multiscale approach and a large vegetation dataset (843 plots, 3511 tree species) from 22 secondary forest chronosequences distributed across the Neotropics, we show that successional trajectories of woody plant species richness, stem density, and basal area are less predictable in landscapes (4-km radius) with intermediate (40-60%) forest cover than in landscapes with high (>60%) forest cover. This supports theory suggesting that high spatial and environmental heterogeneity in intermediately deforested landscapes can increase the variation in key ecological factors for forest recovery (e.g. seed dispersal, seedling recruitment), increasing the uncertainty of successional trajectories. Regarding the recovery rate, only the species richness is positively related to forest cover in relatively small (1-km radius) landscapes. These findings highlight the importance of using a spatially-explicit landscape approach in restoration initiatives and suggest that these initiatives can be more effective in more forested landscapes, especially if implemented across spatial extents of 1-4 km radius. </p>
Dynamics and recovery of forest understory biodiversity over 17 years following varying levels of retention harvesting
<p>1. Retention harvesting is advocated as an alternative to intensive timber harvesting, such as clear-cutting, to better maintain or facilitate recovery of biodiversity and other ecological values in managed forests. However, it is not clear how long the benefits of retention harvests persist.</p> <p>2. We investigated responses of understory vascular plant cover, richness, diversity (inverse Simpson index), and composition to a gradient in dispersed retention (2% [clear-cut], 10%, 20%, 50% and 75% retention; unharvested reference [100% retention]) at 3, 6, 11, and 17 years after harvest, in four boreal mixed wood forest types (deciduous (broadleaf)-dominated, deciduous-dominated with conifer understory, mixed, and conifer-dominated) in western Canada.</p> <p>3. Understory cover and richness tended to increase in the short-term (3 years), peaked at 6–11 years with differences following the gradient of harvesting intensity, then plateaued or declined in the second decade (17 years), by which time there were minimal or no differences among harvesting levels, including the reference. Responses for diversity were minimal. In contrast, composition varied along the gradient of harvesting intensity and showed little recovery towards the unharvested condition over the 17-year period. Generally, for plant community composition, clear-cut and lower retention treatments (10%, 20%) were similar to one another but differed from the higher retention and unharvested reference treatments.</p> <p>4. Synthesis and applications. Retention harvests can moderate the negative impacts of harvesting and facilitate the recovery of biodiversity. Our results suggest that for the cover, richness and diversity of understory vascular plants, this moderating influence is weak and short-lived. However, higher levels of retention can temper changes in understory composition relative to the unharvested forest, but full recovery is likely to be slow and will be complicated by post-harvest regeneration dynamics.</p>
Fire severity as a key determinant of aboveground and belowground biological community recovery in managed even-aged boreal forests
<p><span>Changes in fire regime of boreal forests in response to climate warming are expected to impact post-fire recovery. However, quantitative data on how managed forests sustain and recover from recent fire disturbance are limited. </span></p> <p><span>Two years after a large wildfire in managed even-aged boreal forests in Sweden,</span><span> we investigated how recovery of aboveground and belowground communities, i.e., understory vegetation and soil microbial and faunal communities, responded to variation in the severity of soil (i.e., consumption of soil organic matter) and canopy fires (i.e., tree mortality). </span></p> <p><span>While fire overall enhanced diversity of understory vegetation through colonization of fire adapted plant species, it reduced the abundance and diversity of soil biota. We observed contrasting effects of tree- and soil-related fire severity on survival and recovery of understory vegetation and soil biological communities. </span><span>Severe fires that killed overstory <em>Pinus sylvestris</em> promoted a successional stage dominated by the mosses <em>Ceratodon purpureus</em> and <em>Polytrichum juniperum</em>, but reduced regeneration of tree seedlings and disfavoured the ericaceous dwarf-shrub<em> Vaccinium vitis-idaea</em> and the grass<em> Deschampsia flexuos</em>a. Moreover, high tree mortality from fire reduced fungal biomass and changed fungal community composition, in particular that of ectomycorrhizal fungi, and reduced the fungivorous soil Oribatida. In contrast, soil-related fire severity had little impact on vegetation composition, fungal communities and soil animals. Bacterial communities responded to both tree- and soil-related fire severity. </span></p> <p><span>Synthesis: Our results two years post-fire suggest that a change in fire regime from a historically low-severity ground-fire regime, with fires that mainly burns into the soil organic layer, to a </span><span>stand-replacing </span><span>fire regime with a high degree of tree mortality, as may be expected with climate change, is likely to impact the short-term recovery of stand structure and above- and belowground species composition of even-aged <em>P. sylvestris</em> </span><span>boreal forests.</span></p>
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
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DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
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International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.