Successional stage of a semideciduous seasonal secondary forest with different land use history in the southern of Espírito Santo

Abstract To consider past land use on vegetative structure studies of forest fragments can contribute to conservation and forest restoration actions. From this we aim to compare three sites of a forest fragment with distinct anthropogenic disturbances and to verify if they differ on successional stage through analyses of structural traits (trees) and non-trees abundance (lianas) The studied area is located in the Alegre municipality, ES state, in a semideciduous seasonal forest matrix with different land use history composed of selective cutting (CS), coffee crop (CC) and pasture (PA). At each site, randomly plots were sample (19 total plots, 20 × 20 m each), totaling 0.76 ha. All tree individuals with DBH ≥ 5 cm and liana with DBH ≥ 1 cm were sampled. The successional category showed an advanced stage of succession in the CS and PA sites. The specie with higher VI, the dispersion syndromes and the abundance of lianas showed successional advanced stage only in the PA site, because is located inside the forest fragment providing greater protection from edge effects, and anthropogenic disturbances. The others analyses didn´t showed statistical differences between the three sites.