Revegetation of landslides, vegetation > 1.0m (Large landslide plots at the Luquillo Experimental Forest)

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? The purpose of this study is to document the recovery of vegetation on new landslides in the Luquillo Experimental Forest. Support for this work was provided by grants BSR-8811902, DEB-9411973, DEB-9705814 , DEB-0080538, DEB-0218039 , DEB-0620910 , DEB-1239764, DEB-1546686, and DEB-1831952 from the National Science Foundation to the University of Puerto Rico as part of the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Program. Additional support provided by the University of Puerto Rico and the International Institute of Tropical Forestry, USDA Forest Service.本研究采用取自16处滑坡的永久样地数据，以记录滑坡斑块的时间演替路径（未采用时空代换序列法，详见Guariguata 1990），并解答以下研究问题： （1）滑坡斑块的演替路径具体包含哪些类型？哪些物种构成了各演替路径的特征类群？单块样地的演替路径在单处滑坡内部存在多大程度的变异？ （2）不同滑坡间的演替路径相似度如何？是否存在证据表明，随着时间推移，滑坡区域的植被要么收敛至统一的植被演替终点，要么演替变化速率趋于放缓？ 本研究的核心目标为记录卢奎洛实验森林（Luquillo Experimental Forest）内新生滑坡的植被恢复过程。 本研究的经费支持来自美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）拨付给波多黎各大学的多项拨款，编号分别为BSR-8811902、DEB-9411973、DEB-9705814、DEB-0080538、DEB-0218039、DEB-0620910、DEB-1239764、DEB-1546686及DEB-1831952，相关经费属于卢奎洛长期生态研究计划（Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Program）的组成部分。 此外，本研究还获得了波多黎各大学以及美国农业部森林服务局热带林业国际研究所（International Institute of Tropical Forestry, USDA Forest Service）的经费支持。