Larger fragments have more late-successional species of woody plants than smaller fragments after 50 years of secondary succession

1. Most fragmentation research focuses on the effects of carving up old-growth forests, but less is known about influences of habitat fragmentation on secondary succession in patches of regenerating forests.
2. Working with forest dynamics on islands in a vast lake created by a hydroelectric dam in China (the Thousand Island Lake), we sampled 29 islands that were cleared of forest during dam construction in 1959 and then underwent succession. Measurements taken in 2009-2010 and 2014-2015 evaluated community assembly during succession, based on species diversity, functional traits and structural properties.
3. Forests on small islands remained at relatively early stages of compositional succession: species richness was low, and communities were dominated by early-successional species, with few animal-dispersed and shade-tolerant plants. However, these islands had accumulated similar aboveground biomass density to that on larger islands, mostly in the stems of a fast-growing pine specie...