Shade coffee plantations maintain woody plant diversity and structure in a cloud forest landscape of southern Mexico

• 来源期刊: 林业研究（英文版）
• 年，卷（期）: 2021,（2）
• 所属期刊栏目: ORIGINAL PAPERS
• 页码范围: 637-648
• 页数: 12页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

Cloud forest ecosystems of the Latin American tropics are highly threatened by changes in land-use such as expanding croplands and livestock pastures that promote shifts in the structure and composition of plant communities in these forests.However,shade coffee plantations repre-sent a forest management alternative that has been shown to maintain biodiversity in these ecosystems.In this study,we evaluated changes in the composition,diversity,and structure of Mexican cloud-forest woody species for three land use categories:cattle pastures,shade coffee plantations and advanced succession forests.For each category,fifteen 0.28-ha plots were established and the composition and diversity of vegetation was noted.Composition of species was analyzed using ordination methods,and alpha diversity was compared using Hill numbers.Seventy-seven woody species belonging to 40 families were recorded.Species richness and diversity was high in both the advanced suc-cessional forest and coffee plantations compared to cattle pastures.Vegetation composition and structure was simi-lar between late succession forests and coffee plantations with both land uses also being more structurally complex than cattle pastures.Our results show how shade coffee cul-tivation is a land-use activity that maintains woody plant communities in a manner that aligns with biodiversity conservation.